


a place only you can go

by iamthemagicks



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Gen, Hospitals, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-17
Updated: 2012-10-17
Packaged: 2017-11-16 12:45:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 25,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/539573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iamthemagicks/pseuds/iamthemagicks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel Singer has been living with cardiomyopathy since he was fourteen. He lives with his adoptive parent and sister. While gearing up for graduation ( his sister and lifelong friend Sam), his heart starts to decline. He tries to work through the pain the best he can until his boyfriend, Dean ( a fledgling musician) returns home for a tour. But after an'episode' that lands him in the hospital, Castiel and his family discover that he is in need of a transplant. Castiel has to step back and consider his relationship with Dean ( who sleeps with others man and women on tour and Castiel is aware) and the guilt of causing financial crisis to his family.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a place only you can go

**Author's Note:**

> Posted in response to the [Dean/Cas Big Bang](http://deancasbigbang.livejournal.com)  
> [Art Master Post](http://xlostloonax.livejournal.com/10731.html)

****

**a place only you can go**

Castiel wakes up in the middle of the night and he thinks he’s drowning. He knows what it feels like to drown; when he was six, and went swimming with his sister, Jo, at the river on the edge of the property. He slipped, his foot got stuck, and he inhaled water. His lungs burned, he saw a light, he was convinced he was going to die. Next thing he knew, a woman’s mouth was on his and he was throwing up water.

            Fourteen years later, he still gasps for air. He rolls over and fumbles for his oxygen concentrator, a gray tank pushed against the wall. Instead he finds Jo next to him, putting a mask over his mouth.

            “You move too much in your sleep,” she says, dabbing his forehead with a cool cloth.

            He props himself up on his elbows. “How did you hear me?”

            “I always hear you.” Her mouth tweaks to one side and she presses her knuckles against his cheek.

            He gasps, flopping back onto his pillows. “Mom and Dad?”

            The curtains form his window are drawn open, the moonlight shines right through the glass, making his sister shine like an angel. She rolls her eyes. “Dad’s sleeping.”

            “Mom?”

            “Waiting in the hall.” She adjusts the silver chain around his neck, the four charms. A cross for God and Jesus, the heart for Mom and Dad, a snake for Jo. The guitar for Dean.

            “You’ve been thrashing a lot lately.”

            He shrugs. “Don’t feel any different.” He inhales and tries to recite scripture so he doesn’t excite himself. God is his shepherd, Jesus is his light.

            Jo yawns and stretches, her blonde hair almost white. “Want me to lie down with you?”

            “No. you have a big day tomorrow.”

            “Please.” She gathers her hair into a ponytail. She looks like their mother. Her wide eyes and her smile. “High school graduation is small potatoes.”

            “Compared to what?” he laughs, but it makes him cough.

            She flattens her hand on his chest, warm and caring, Just like Ellen. “You don’t have to come.”

            “Why wouldn’t I?”

            “You’re sick.”

            “Not that sick.” He coughs. He looks past Jo’s shoulder at the wall, the poster of Dean’s band peeling at the corners. The cross on the wall is crooked, he wants to sit up and fix it, but sitting up further seems like too much of a hassle. His gaze moves to his oxygen tank, small and silver, gleaming. “Besides,” he says. “Who’ll take all of those embarrassing pictures that you know Mom wants?”

            “Whatever.”

            Jo sits with him until his fluttering heart eases to a regular beat and he doesn’t need the mask.

            “So.” She fiddles with the drawstring of her pajama pants. “Dreaming about Dean?”

            “Yeah. Want to hear all the details?”

            Another eye roll. “God, no.”

            They laugh. When they were kids, she harbored affections for Dean, but she outgrew that quick, after she accidentally walked in on Dean and Cas, Dean on his knees, head between Castiel’s legs.

            “I’ll be right next door,” Jo promises. “And you know Sam’s across the hall.”

            Castiel grins, wiping his mouth. “He wouldn’t know what to do. The tank makes him nervous.”

            Jo straightens his tousled hair. “He’s just worried. It scares him.” She touches each of his charms, fingers dancing over the left side of his chest, like she’s trying to touch his heart.

            “Get some sleep.” Castiel tries to nudge her away. She kisses his forehead and stands.

            She walks out of his room and leaves the door open. They’ve left it open for years, just in case someone has to get to him, or if he falls out of bed. It made sneaking Dean into his room at night difficult, especially after that first orgasm when he almost couldn’t breathe. Jo covered for him, helped Dean crawl out the window and put the mask over Castiel’s mouth.

            As Castiel rearranges himself on the bed, his mother walks into his room. She wears a long robe, down to her knees. She tucks the dark strands of her hair behind her ears. “Are you okay, hon?”

            “Jo was just in here.”

            Ellen sits down on the foot of the bed, the mattress sinking with her movement. “I know. I just couldn’t sleep.” She smiles tenderly. She touches his cheeks, his forehead, like when he was little and had a fever.

            “I’m okay, Mom,” he promises, his eyelids heavy, his breathing back to normal.

            “I know.” Like Jo, she touches his hair. “I used to come in here and check on you two when you were sleeping.”

            “That’s creepy.”

            Ellen laughs. “You’ll understand when you have kids of your own.” She leans forward to kiss his head. Everyone wants to kiss him like it’s the last time they’ll see him. “I love you, Cas.”

            “Love you too.”

            “Good boy.” She quietly ducks out of his room and down the hall, but Castiel hears her leaning back and forth near her door, contemplating going into her room. Then there’s a rousing snore from his father, and the bedroom door opens and closes again.

            Castiel’s heart is still fluttering a bit, beating like a little bird. He counts to ten, he keeps his hand near the top of his oxygen tank, just in case.         

 

At age fourteen, Castiel was diagnosed with cardiomyopathy. Hyperthrophic cardiomyopathy to be exact. His heart muscles were becoming thick, just on the left side, making it hard for blood to leave his heart, making his heart work harder to pump blood, and to relax to fill with blood. Some people lived long lives without a single symptom of cardiomyopathy, others dropped dead without even knowing they had a condition. Thank you very much, Web MD.

            He’d been riding bikes with Jo and Dean, and collapsed. Like when he was drowning, there was heaviness in his chest and his lungs were on fire and there was a light. He couldn’t breathe. He woke up in the hospital, his mother sitting at his bedside, gripping his hand like a vice, and his father fiddling with the mounted television set.

            _Stop that_ , she scolded.

            _His favorite show is coming on._

            Castiel and Bobby watched _Star Trek_ every afternoon.

            _He’s sick._

_That doesn’t stop him from gettin’ his Trek on._

            Castiel woke up, his mother fussed, his father ruffled his hair. Tubes in his nose, electrodes attached to his chest, and his legs were almost too long for the bed. A doctor came in, sat his parents down. Ellen held his hand the whole time and Castiel watched Dean and Jo pacing in the hallway.

            _Mr. and Mrs. Singer_ , the doctor started. _I’m afraid Castiel is suffering from a serious heart condition. It’s usually genetic_. He wrote down some notes. _Do either one of you have a family history of heart disease or problems?_

 _No._ Ellen cleared her throat and shifted in her chair. _Cas is adopted. We don’t have much history on his birth parents_.

            They were sent home with a lot of pamphlets and numbers for support groups, a bunch of pills, and he had to go back to the hospital for further testing.

            _You’ll be fine,_ Dean told him upon his return.

            _My heart gave out on me. That’s not too optimistic._

_Not all the way. It’s still kicking._

            They kissed for the first time. Dean tasted like Jolly Ranchers and apple pie.

            _So, are you like, gay or whatever?_ Jo asked him that night after dinner. He was only allowed soup and water, some toast. The next day, Ellen was going to toss all the bad food from the pantry and she’d go straight to the grocery store and buy heart healthy food.

            Jo had been watching when Dean and Castiel kissed out on the screened-in porch.

            Castiel took a deep breath, wiggling his toes in his ratty socks. _Yeah. I think. Yeah_. His stomach churned. He was afraid Joe would stop loving him, that they all would stop loving him. They would send him back to the group home, because who wanted a defective kid?

            _Cool_ , Jo said. _Is Dean? I mean, he flirts with girls a lot._

_He flirts with everyone._

            She kicked her feet back and forth, her legs didn’t reach the floor yet. She was only two years younger than Castiel, but had been part of the family longer. _Are you going to marry him? Or another boy?_

            _I don’t know. Jo, I’m really tired._

_Okay._

            She slept with him that night, stretched out against him like a lemur, her legs curled around his, her little breaths coming out like a purr.

 

The sun shines bright in the early morning, all white and yellow. Castiel eats his breakfast, egg whites and some wheat toast, a glass of orange juice and a cup of blueberries. His camera sits on the table, just out of reach of his cup and plate. He’s not supposed to have his camera at the table, but this morning, no one is paying attention. Jo is scatterbrained, running around the kitchen and u and down the stairs, trying to grab clothes and shoes for the ceremony.

            “Mom, where are my white shoes?” she calls on her ascent back to her room.

            “Where did you leave them Joanna Beth?” Ellen calls back.

            Bobby just sits at the head of the table, reading the paper, clearing his throat.

            “I don’t _know_ Mother!” her footsteps are heavy crossing the floor above them.

            Ellen rolls her eyes. “Sam, you’re going to be late!”

            There’s a slight struggle in the hallway and Castiel hears Sam and Jo almost tangle. She yells at him to get out of her way, he grumbles something about PMS and there’s more yelling before she travels down the hall and down the backstairs for the other side of the house.

            “This is stupid,” Sam grumbles, entering the kitchen. He’s already dressed, in a suit (the sleeves are almost too short, it had been Dean’s) and a tie (that belongs to Bobby). He stands taller than everyone, taller than Castiel who is three years older. He’s thin, he’s a little awkward with still a margin to grow.

            “Oh, you look so precious,” Ellen gushes.

            Sam frowns.

            Sam lives with them now, since his mother died, and his father signed over guardianship to the Singers, so he wouldn’t have to switch schools or have to be too far away from his brother.

            Bobby turns another page in his paper. “Leave the boy alone.”

            Ellen brushes his bangs out of his eyes. “Everyone has to do it. Even Dean wore a suit.”

            Castiel remembers, the two of them in ties and dress shirts, with green gowns and caps, standing like idiots in front of the bay window in the living room for a picture before everyone was ushered into the cars. Mary was alive then, though sick. She sat next to Ellen with a wispy smile and bright eyes, watching her son walk across the stage.

            “At least his suit fit.”

            “You look fine, darling. Get some breakfast.”

            There’s a plate for him with scrambled eggs and bacon, toast and a full glass of milk. Castiel isn’t supposed to have bacon or a lot of meat.  But while Ellen had her back turned and Bobby read the paper, and Jo was frantically looking for bobby pins, Castiel reaches over and snags a strip of bacon.            

            Jo comes down the stairs in her white shoes with her matching white dress. Hair done and up, the green gown draped over her arm. “Sam, we don’t have time to eat.”

            “Oh, you know I just say that to burn fire under all your asses.” Ellen shovels out a plate for Jo. “You look so beautiful.” A tear twinkles in her eyes, Jo rolls her.

            “I don’t want to get stuff on my dress.” She speaks quietly.

            They eat in relative silence. Forks on the bottoms of the plates, the crinkling of the newspaper. He kept telling Ellen to sit down, take it easy. Castiel finishes everything on his plate and his juice.

            Bobby gets up from his chair to go and change, Sam and Jo grab the car keys.

            “How’s your breathing?” Ellen asks as soon as she and Castiel are alone and the kitchen is quiet.

            He inhales twice. “Fine.”

            “Don’t lie to me, boy.”

            He furrows his brows at her. “I’m not lying.”

            “You’re wheezing.”

            “I am not.”     

            He is a little bit. He doesn’t want to take his oxygen tank with him to the ceremony. He’ll just be sitting, there’s no strenuous activity. But his chest still feels heavy. He takes his pills and to placate his mother, he sits on the couch in the living room with the portable oxygen tank until it’s time to leave. He switches the lenses on his camera, so he can get wide shots, but also zoom in when he wants. For when Jo and Sam each shake the principal’s hand.

            “You’re wearing that?” Bobby says, coming down the stairs and adjusting his own tie, a nice shirt tucked into his jeans. Ellen wears a dress, soft and feminine on her frame, a contrast to her surroundings. The peeling and yellowing wallpaper, the gas stove that doesn’t always work. Dishes in the sink, beer and soda cans overflowing in the extra trashcan that needed to be taken to recycling. The refrigerator hummed and leaked on occasion, and the light above the sink had been broken for months.

            Castiel looks down at himself. Jeans, sneakers, a v-neck tee shirt. “It’s hot out.

            “I know,” he grunts.

            “Stop complaining,” Ellen says, moving to Bobby to adjust his tie properly. Castiel watches his parents with slight awe and admiration. He’s never seen anyone look at each other the other way they do, despite the yelling and quips. Quickly, he snaps a picture. “Cas needs the extra air.” She tugs on the tie and gives him a kiss. “Besides, he’s just the brother. Everyone only cares about the parents.

            Castiel snorts. “Thanks.”

            “I love you baby. Now pack up, we’re going to be late.”

            “Anyone hear from Dean yet?” Bobby asks as he grabs the keys to the pickup.

            “No. I mean, he said he’d be here for dinner. He’s really upset he’s not making it.”

            Ellen scoffs. “At least he’s making it here. Damn father of his can’t be bothered to come and see his own son graduating high school.”

            John Winchester left his wife and children years ago, right around the time that Castiel almost drowned. He has a new family now, another son, a daughter. He usually stops by on Christmas, sometimes with one of his new kids in tow. They’re nice enough, the kids. And they seem to adore Dean and Sam. John used to drop off some gifts, sometimes money. He gave the cash from the sale of the house for Sam’s college fund.

            Ellen snaps Castiel to attention. “Now, Cas, we’re not waiting for you.”

            He would be just as happy sitting at home, in the air conditioning, waiting for Dean to roll up to the house. But he thinks of his sister’s shining face, and Sam’s awkward suit, and stands, dragging his tank with him. Just in case.

 

Castiel sits next to his mother on the end of a bleacher so there’s room for his stupid tank. He wanted to leave it in the truck, but Ellen insisted, just in case. No fair making Bobby run back to the parking lot to get it. Cas stares at his fraying sneakers, sunglasses almost falling off his ears. A hole worn through near the toe, the laces tattered and brown/gray instead of white.

            “Are you okay?” Ellen asks, touching the back of his neck with her warm fingers.

            “Fine.” He turns his head so she sees, and smiles. His cheeks are pink from the heat, his skin usually liquid white, but he knows his lips may be blue.

            She eyes him, suspiciously.

            “He’s fine,” Bobby says, adjusting his hat. “He’s not going to do anything stupid like at Dean’s show, right?”

            “Yeah.”

            Three years ago, Dean’s first group performed at a battle of the bands, a big to do senior performance. The winner would get a song on the local radio station and automatically qualify for a statewide competition. Dean had vibrated with excitement for weeks. Castiel watched him practice in the garage every day. Castiel had just started having occasional breathing difficulties. He was on medication to keep his heart rhythm in check, but the lightheadedness still hit him sometimes.

            But Dean was up on stage, gorgeous as hell, his tight pants, his slightly ripped shirt, eyeliner that streaked down his cheeks. Castiel sat in the auditorium, clapping, just staring like a star struck school girl even though he’d known Dean over ten years. And then he couldn’t breathe. And not in the romantic, eyes meeting across the room kind of way. His chest burned, his throat went dry, he was drowning again.

            If Dean hadn’t been staring right at him, curling his lips as he sang some particularly dirty lyrics (which were either about him, or his precious car, Castiel was never able to get Dean to fess up to which) and saw Castiel fall over, he probably would have died.

            He woke up in the hospital (again) with machines hooked up and beeping. Dean sat next to him, still in his stage gear, sweaty and grinning.

            _Had me scared for a minute. Didn’t think I was that good to make people faint._

_I didn’t faint._

He laughed. _Oh yeah you did._ He held Cas’ hand. _Your mom’s fuming, I’d watch out._

_Great._

_We came in second. Got fifty bucks each._

_I’m sorry._

_Not your fault. They said my lyrics were too_ _adult._ He grinned.

            After that, Castiel took the tank when he thought he’d need it, which has been more and more lately.

            “Joanna Beth Singer,” the principal announces.

            Ellen leaps to her feet to scream and clap wildly. Jo shakes the principal’s hand and grabs the folder. She smiles for the camera man down by the stage. Castiel redirects his focus, leaning forward and quickly zooming, making sure to capture all of Jo’s movement from the handshake to walking off the stage. Her smile, her glittering eyes.

 As she turns back to the crowd, she makes a frustrated face, a glare (which Castiel catches all on film), but she waves on her way make to her seat.

            Castiel’s chest is tight and he finally bends for his oxygen, pulling on the cannulas.

            “You okay?” Bobby asks. Ellen is standing still waving at Sam.

            “Fine.” He takes a deep breath, but his lungs never fill to capacity.

 

Castiel sits on the seat of a broken tractor in the front yard. Vines grow over the large wheels. A family of rabbits have built a nest under the machine. He sees baby bunnies zip to and from the bedding. He eats blueberries from a plastic baggie. Ellen calls to him from the front porch about dinner and his pills. They have a large feast prepared for the occasion. Bobby’s been busy smoking a pig for almost two days and Ellen baked and bought at least a dozen different disserts. Castiel stays at the tractor, steadying himself with a foot pressed to the rusted crankshaft.

            Across the field he sees it, the black sheen of the Impala speeding down the gravel road, dust kicking in its wake.

            His weak heart flutters, he becomes slightly short of breath and wishes he’d taken the extra thirty seconds to drag the concentrator out with him. He slides down the machine and leans against it, waiting for the car to reach its destination.

            Dean plays his rock music so loud that Castiel hears it before he sees the car turning at the mailbox. It slows at the tractor and finally stops, the music cutting off. He stays still against the machine, waiting. Dean rummages around the backseat and then takes off his sunglasses.

            The first time Dean returned home from a tour, Castiel was pretty dramatic about it, jogging and leaping into Dean’s arms, planting a longing kiss on Dean’s waiting mouth. But Castiel can’t run anymore.

            Dean Winchester steps out of his car, the setting sun illuminating his body. A Cheshire grin on his face, his hair a little longer than Cas remembered, with a little bit of green coloring in it, combed into a faux-hawk. His guitar case at his side, his jeans ripped at the knees, his leather jacket over his shoulders despite the heat. “Hey gorgeous.”

            Though Castiel doesn’t feel particularly gorgeous. His legs are kind of swollen, his fingers are blue and so are his lips. He didn’t shower this morning, so his hair is pushed in wild directions and he had rings under his eyes the color of bruises.

            “Hey.” His throat always goes dry, especially when Dean is still in his stage garb. The styled hair, the heavy eyeliner and mascara, the stubble on his cheeks and chin.

            “How was it?”

            Castiel shrugs. “Just a graduation ceremony. Mom made a spectacle out of herself, but so did everyone else.”

            Dean chuckles, walking closer. “Sammy’s doing okay?”

            “He’s great.”

            Now Dean stands just out of Castiel’s personal space. He reaches for Dean, grasping the lapel of his jacket, pulling him into his space, getting that kiss that he’s been dreaming about.  Dean always kisses like he means it, like it’s the first time and last time over and over again. Castiel arches his body against Dean’s, but then he can’t breathe, having to jerk away and cough. Dean laughs again. “Guess I take your breath away, huh?”

            “That gets less special each time you say it.”

            His grin fades a bit and he rubs his thumb over Castiel’s bottom lip. “I need my tank,” Castiel says, like a stupid teenager, gazing into Dean’s eyes, green as ferns.

            Dean’s face tightens, his eyebrows furrowing, the ball of the ring in his left brow glinting with the sunlight. “Do you? I mean, you were fine when I left.”

            That was three months ago and Castiel has been dragging around the tank for six weeks.

            The smirk grows back on his face and Dean places a warm hand on Castiel’s neck. “Well, let’s go wheezy.” Another kiss on the temple. Castiel doesn’t say anything, but Dean lets him lean against him like a cane.

           

Castiel sneaks into Bobby’s study and plops on the couch where he’d ditched the tank. He puts the cannulas in his nose and takes a few deep breaths, though never deep enough. He hopes that Dean’s arrival will distract his mother long enough for his lungs to stop burning and his heart to stop working extra hard.

            From where he sits, he sees just into the kitchen where Ellen has hung streamers and balloons, with a giant banner tied over the back door that reads, CONGRATULATIONS JO AND SAMMY! A cake on the table, dinner warming on the stove. Jo is setting the table and Dean walks in, setting his guitar case against the pantry door. Ellen beams and hugs him, kissing him on the cheeks.

            “So glad you made it home,” she says as he hugs her back. “Sorry we didn’t make it to the last few shows.”

            At first, they tried to make it to all of his shows, when he played just in town at the South Dakota University student commons, and the local bars and clubs, but the more popular the band became, the further away they toured. With Castiel in school and becoming sick, he didn’t make it out as often as he liked.

            He shakes his head. “No, I mean, I should have been here for Sam.” He scratches at his neck.

            “Don’t worry about it,” Jo tells him, her hand full of silverware. “She made Cas take pictures. And she took pictures. _A lot_ of pictures. Too many.”

            He smiles, but it’s halfhearted.

            Sam comes through the back door from the laundry room, carrying a pile of t-shirts. Probably Castiel’s. he has this habit of starting laundry, but usually forgets to switch it from washer to drying, and then to get the load out of the dryer. Most of his clothes end up wrinkled.

            “Sammy!” Dean greets with near glee, grabbing his younger brother by the shoulders, holding him tight. Sam drops the shirts on the counter.

            “Where’s Cas?” Ellen asks, glancing around. “Did he come in with you?”

            Castiel removes the tubes. She leans back and sees him sitting on the couch. “Sugar, can you get the drinks?”

            “Yeah.” Castiel walks to the kitchen.

            “You okay?” She stops him and takes him by the chin, staring into his eyes, making him squirm a bit.

            He holds her wrist, warm and as soft as cream butter. “Yes.”

            She squints as he stares. “Alright.” She releases him. “Alright. Take your medicine.”

            He sits and does as he’s told. A handful of pills for arrhythmia and the murmur. Each day he feels his heart is just a tiny bit weaker, but doesn’t tell anyone.

            Dean runs upstairs to drop off his bags, in the attic that has been furnished as an apartment. Castiel fills the glasses with water and ice. Bobby comes in from the backyard.

            When Dean returns, he’s changed, the eyeliner smeared across the face. He goes on to tell Sam how proud he is, how sorry he is that he missed the ceremony. “It’s fine,” Sam says. Dean carries guilt, but Sam is beyond happy for his brother living out his dream.

            Bobby leads them in a quick prayer. “And Lord thanks for having Dean come home safe and not drinking himself to death like the late Jimi Hendrix, for my kids and Sam, and Ellen. May her food not kill us all. Amen.”

            Ellen kicks him under the table.

            Dean shovels food into his mouth like he hasn’t eaten in weeks. On the road, he lives off fast food and gas stop meals. Meals made to order and to go, candy bars and bags of greasy chips.

            Castiel eats slowly, one green pea at a time, and hopes that his parents don’t take notice. He learned to take control of his breathing before, he can do it again. He’s scheduled for an appointment next month with his cardiologist. He could hold out that long.

           

 The house is quiet with the sound of people sleeping. Bobby snoring, Ellen’s light breathing. Jo is silent as a cat, turning in her sleep. Sam sleeps like the dead, heavy and unmoving on his stomach. Like a thief, Castiel moves from his room down the carpeted hall, carrying the tank instead of dragging it, avoiding all the squeaky spots. His parents sleep with their door open and he peeks in. His mother on her side with an arm thrown over his father, both of them curled and safe.

            He walks to the door that leads to the attic. Closed, but never locked, he pulls the brass knob open and slips in, closing it gently behind him. Up the rickety stairs that move with his teps and the wind outside.

            The attic is arranged like a loft. A bed in the middle of the room, a kitchenette that Dean never uses, a small bathroom. Couch by the window, sheets covering a bunch of boxes on the far end of the room.

            He finds Dean on the bed, in his worn jeans, barefooted, shirtless, the acoustic guitar on his lap, slowly strumming the chords, a notebook by his knee. Next to Sam and his car, that guitar was Dean’s life. It used to be Mary’s, and she taught him how to play. He carried it with him everywhere he went.

            He’s washed his face completely and the spray pain out of his hair. “Hey gorgeous.” He grins.

            “Hey.”

            “Have a seat.”

            “You’re working.” He could spend hours locked in the attic playing music and writing.

            “Nah.” Dean sets down the instrument and closes the notebook. Castiel sits next to Dean, running his feet along the gray carpet. Dean leans in so their heads touch.

            “I missed you,” Castiel says.

            “Me too.”

            Dean smells like cigarettes and the mixture of soap and metallic water from the shower. He doesn’t smoke around Castiel; he saves it for the road, or sitting on the roof—easily accessible from the back window—and staring at the open field and the edge of the lake. He writes by moonlight sometimes, or in the middle of the day when everyone is gone.

            Castiel presses his dry lips against Dean’s, licking into his mouth. Dean’s hand on his hip, on his bicep, pulling him closer, trying to make their bodies flush. He reaches to trace over Dean’s tattoos. His mother’s name in calligraphy over his chest, down his side where thorns weave around his ribs. A sparrow on his left arm, a line of stripes by his elbow from when he was seventeen, drunk, and was inspired by “Eye of the Tiger”.

            It starts raining, thunder in the distance, lightning flashing, the power flickering. The house is as old as Moses, passed down through the family for years. Since the first Singer arrived in South Dakota. The house always creaks, the wind shakes the shutters, the power blinks during every storm or windy day.   

            Dean reclines into the pillows, Castiel on top of him. He groans with movement, hands traveling to Castiel’s hips, slipping under the material of Cas’ pajama bottoms. “You drive me crazy,” Dean whispers, grinding his hips. “Thought about you the whole time.”

            “Oh yeah?” Castiel pulls back to breathe.

            Dean tilts his head, his grip becoming tighter. “Of course. Always. Every day.”

            There are others and Castiel knows. Girls that Dean fucks against bathroom stall, guys that he blows behind the conversion van. They don’t talk about it. Dean showers before he comes home and he never screws someone the day before. It bothered Castiel first (still kind of does), made him feel as meaningless as the groupies that Dean toyed with. But he always came home to Cas.

            Another kiss, another rolling of the hips, the scratching of denim against cotton. Dean grabs his ass, hands under the boxers. When he’s with Dean, Castiel doesn’t care that he can’t breathe, that the valves in his heart are thickened and turning to shit, that each pump is a struggle.

            Dean leans back and Castiel inhales. “Why’d you stop?”

            “You’re not breathing right.” He clears his throat.

            “So?”

            He lightly chuckles. “’Cause I don’t want you flat-lining on me. Your mom would kill me if you went to the hospital just because you couldn’t resist me.”

            “You scared of my mom?”

            “Every damn day.”

            “But I want you,” Castiel whispers with another inhale.      

            Dean touches his cheeks, then reaches for the tank at the edge of the mattress. He loops the cannulas into his nose and around his ears and Castiel’s lungs finally ease. “Atta boy.”

            The storm gets closer. Castiel lies on the bed while Dean scribbles in his notebook. He hums mindlessly, bobbing his head. “What are you writing about?”

            “Stuff.”

            “Stuff?”

            “Hmm.” He answers. He chews on his pen cap for a minute. “What rhymes with roof?”

            “Goof.”

            Dean cranes his head back, his mouth twisted. “That don’t belong in a song.”

            “Pick another word.”

            “I lost that rhyming dictionary Sammy got me.” He gazes out the window into the rain, his shoulders sloped like a hanger, sweat beading at the base of his neck. “Roof is stupid,” he agrees.

            “Nothing you write is stupid.”

            Another soft chuckle. “You’re sweet.”

            Dean writes and hums for another hour as the storm passes over, leaving on rain in its wake. Castiel becomes drowsy and keeps drifting in and out of sleep. Dean turns off the light and sets aside his notebook. Castiel listen to the soles of Dean’s naked feet moving across the wood floor to the wedge of a bathroom, and he brushes his teeth.

            That mattress dips and squeaks as Dean sits and lies down, spooning himself against Castiel’s back. He smells Castiel’s hair, he kisses Castiel’s neck. “I’ll be home for a while,” Dean promises. “I love the music, but I’m tired of traveling.”     

            “Isn’t that what one does when one is the lead singer of a semi-successful rock band?”

            Soft chuckle, fingers in his hair, nose at his ear. “You’ve always been my biggest fan.” It’s a compliment, but it comes out sad, like Dean thinks Castiel is the only one who cares.

 

None of them ever left South Dakota until Mary died. Dean took care of the house, he took care of Sam while Mary worked. When she became sick, he took care of her too, sat next to her holding her hand in her final days. That’s when Castiel’s heart problems started. He watched Dean watch his mother while his lips went blue.

            When they were at the funeral and Sam was crying and John and his other kids showed up, when Ellen sobbed and Bobby held her, Cas sat next to Dean and squeezed his hand. He couldn’t breathe and thought it was the overwhelming sadness until everything went black and warm, and he woke up in the hospital again.

            _You gotta stop doing this,_ Dean said, after Ellen went down the hall to track down a nurse because Castiel was hungry.

            _Doing what?_ He stretched his legs under the blanket, wishing he’d worn nicer underwear.

            Dean turned from the window, his eyes pink, the tie around his neck loose. He owned the one nice suit that had been packed away in the attic.

            _You didn’t have to come here_ , Castiel said. _I mean, you didn’t have to leave Sam and the cemetery._

Dean shrugged. _Sammy didn’t wanna be there after they buried her. He’s at home with your dad and Jo._

_Is your dad still around?_

Dean almost laughed. _You kidding me? He gave me and Sam a hug, fifty bucks, and then left. I don’t know why he brought Adam and Linda._

 _They like seeing you, I guess_. He shrugged and traced his vein down to his arm where a needle stuck _. I really am sorry,_ Castiel said. _I loved her too._

 _She was crazy about you_. Dean tried to smile, but his mouth just dragged down at the corners and a tear rolled down his cheek. He never cried in front of Sam, he hardly let down the wall for Cas. Dean sat on Castiel’s bed and reached for Castiel’s hand. He stared out the window and sniffled.

            _So, you have to stop doing this, okay?_

_Okay._

            He stayed in the hospital for a week while he was tested further. When he sat alone in his room, Dean would break out his guitar, and play him soft rock and acoustic versions of Led Zeppelin songs.

 

It’s still raining when Castiel wakes up the next morning. Dean sleeps curled around him, his grip fierce and unwilling to let go as Castiel pries away his arms and slips out of bed. Dean groans and rolls, his face crushing into the pillow. Castiel pulls on his t-shirt and sits on the foot of the bed with his tank for a few minutes.

            “Come back to bed.” Dean nudges Castiel with his foot. “I’ll make it worth your while.”

            “You wouldn’t last night.” He turns back. “Time for breakfast. Need to keep up my strength.”

            “Sure.” Dean tucks a handful of sheets under his chin.

            Sam and Jo are eating at the table. Bobby reads the paper and Ellen is just sitting down. “Morning, Cas,” she greets. “There’s a plate for you in the microwave.”

            “Thanks.”

            Egg white omelet, toast, a bowl of fruit right next to the sink. A glass of organic grape juice.

            “Dean up yet?” Sam asks.

            “No.”

            “You know he sleeps all the time,” Jo says, wiping her mouth.

            “He works hard when he’s touring.”

            “Touring,” she scoffs. “He goes to college campuses and bars.”

            “That’s how you get your start,” Ellen defends. “Don’t rain on someone else’s parade.”

            Castiel rearranged the omelet on his plate. “They’ve been doing some country and state fairs too.” They had the big state fair in Pierre coming up at the end of summer.

            Ellen smiles. “Well there you go.”

            Castiel chews slowly with his mouth slightly open. No one notices.

            It stops raining  and the sun comes out, shining bright yellow and warm. “Think I’ll turn on the air conditioner today.”

            “Ain’t that hot,” Bobby announces, folding his paper.

            “It’s eighty already.” She points to the thermostat stuck onto the kitchen window. “It’s going to be a scorcher. Easier for Cas to breathe.”

            Castiel sips his juice.

            “Besides,” his mother continues. “You’re just as miserable when it’s hot.”

            “Am not.”

            “See, you’re already starting.” She stands up and walks away without another word.

            Bobby grumbles. “That woman is a thorn in my side.”

            Jo laughs. She puts her dishes in the sink and then round the table to his spot. She loops her arms around his shoulders and gives him a kiss on a the cheek. “Yeah, but how would you make it through each day without her?”

            He grunts again. “You’re no picnic either.”

            She giggles and gives him another kiss before flittering away.

            “What are you gonna do today?” Bobby stands to refill his coffee.

            Castiel shrugs. Sam sets down his fork and knife. “I don’t know. Maybe we can go to the dock, just hang out.”

            “You up for that, Cas?”

            Castiel frowns and pushes away from the table. “Yeah, I’m not an invalid.” He scuttles away before Sam or Bobby can comment. Upstairs, Jo is coming out of her room dressed in jean shorts and a bikini top, a towel draped over her arm. Her wheat blonde hair pulled into a high ponytail. “You guys already decide we’re going out?”

            She rolls her eyes. “We always go down to the dock. Dean suggested it. Hurry and suit up. I already woke him.” She trots away, back downstairs.

            In his room, Castiel changes. His swim trunks fit loose and he has to double knot the string around his waist. He wears on old t-shirt, grabs his towel and sunglasses. The tank sits by his nightstand. Jo had stuck a bunch of stickers over it a few years ago. Glittery snakes and pink ponies. He stares at it, head tilted. The dock is only half a mile away, they’ll probably walk. He won’t be swimming a lot, probably just floating on the inner tube, being pushed around by Jo or Dean. Begrudgingly, he grabs the tank , heading back to the living room.

            Dean comes down, rubbing his eyes, in sweatpants. From where Castiel sits on the couch, he sees Dean and Ellen in the kitchen. Tattoos ink all over Dean’s back. Lyrics to Zeppelin’s “Ramble On” on his shoulder blade, a flock of black birds flying on his other shoulder, Sam’s birthday on his hip, a tiny rose above the cleft of his ass, just peeking over the ridge of his pants.

            “Alright,” he announces, once he puts away the dishes and wipes his mouth. He changes. Jo and Sam sit with Castiel in the den. He wears the cannula tubes, the tank secured to a little dolly that he can drag behind him as they walk. Jo looks at him suspiciously as he takes deep breaths.

            “What?” Castiel snaps.

            “Nothing. Are you sure you can make it down there?”

            “I’ll be fine.”

            They walk down a dirt path that leads from the backyard through the woods and to the lake just off the edge of the Singer’s property. Jo and Sam walk ahead and Dean takes short strides to keep in pace with Cas. The tank wobbles and clanks along the slightly uneven stones and occasional tree roots.

            “Did you finish your song?”

            “Huh?” Dean’s staring above them at the tress, the sun cutting through the canopy. “Oh yeah. After you fell asleep. Rain was pretty cool, neat with the lightning. It was late. Sun was comin’ up.”

            “Early then.”

            He grins. “Whatever.”

            Even with the tank, Castiel has to sit on the edge of the dock for a while. Jo and Sam jump right in. Dean sits next to Cas.

            Sunlight flickers off the disrupted water like cut gems. They took down the rope from the tree on the other side of the lake after Castiel’s incident. For years he wouldn’t go into the water. He always watched his family from the dock, and Dean and Sam splashing their mother.

            _Come on!_ Dean called when they were teenagers. He swam to Castiel, ran a hand up Cas’ dangling leg. _I won’t let you drown._

            Castiel glowed bright red. _I forgot how to swim._

 _I’ll keep you up,_ he promised. _Hold my hand, it’s fun._ His eyes glimmered, water clinging to his long, curlicue eyelashes. Castiel slipped into the water and Dean’s arms.

            “You sure you can be out here?”

            “Yeah.” He breathes. “Just need a few more minutes. Go ahead and dive in.”

            “Nah. I’ll wait for you. No fun with just them. Sam is just going to try and dunk me.”

            “You did it to him when we were little.”

            Another grin across his face. “Didn’t expect the twerp to get so big. Shit he’s _still_ growing.” Dean stares out into the water. Sam stands in the shallow end, the water up to his stomach, and Jo balancing on his shoulders. She screams, but laughs too, trying to keep a grip on his shaggy hair.

            Dean leans over and kisses Castiel on the side of his mouth until Castiel turns too, letting Dean catch him completely on the lips.

            “Gross!” Sam yells.

            “Yeah, you two get a room!” Jo still laughs.

            Castiel takes a few more deep breaths. He’s filling his lungs as best as he can. He takes out the tubes and hangs them on the tank. “As long as I don’t flail too much.”

            “That’s the spirit.” Dean smiles. “I’ll go get the tube for you. Me and Sam can push you around.” Dean dives into the water and starts to swim towards the other dock where three large inner tubes hang on hooks. Castiel plops into the lake like a dead fish. He’s just at standing level, his toes brushing the sandy bottom.

            Jo comes over to him and gives him a slick hug, tight around his neck. She’s tiny and treads water around him, her hair loose and floating around her head like seaweed. “Seriously, are you okay to be out here?” Her eyes, just as blue and orb shaped as his, drill into him, the same way their mother stares.

            He pushes his foot and lets go of the bottom so he bobs. “Yeah. I mean, I brought the tank. I’m just going to chill out on the tube. I’ll be fine.”

            She nods, pursing her lips together.

            Dean returns with one of the inner tubes. Castiel climbs in, his spindly legs hanging out, his head leaning back. The sun beats down and he feels like he’s being baked. Dean pulls on the rope around his tube and they drift out to the deeper water. Jo splashes him to keep him cool. Sam spins him a few times. He laughs, dizzy and slightly nauseous. Dean pops up behind him to run his fingers through Castiel’s thick and hair and kiss his temple.

“How about we go to the movies tonight?” Ellen suggests when Castiel, Jo, Sam and Dean walk in through the back door, all dripping, towels wrapped around their waists. Castiel leans against the open door.

            “Where’s Dad?” Jo asks.

            “Had to go down to the shop. He’ll be back in time. Why don’t you guys go shower and change.” They all start up the stairs. “No sharing.” She glares at Dean.

            Castiel blushes red  as a pepper as he goes up the stairs first. He’s been out of school for a month now, but back into his mother’s hen-like care. He doesn’t blame her. If his kid could pass over dead from a heart attack at any moment, he supposes he’d keep out a watchful eye as well.

            “Don’t you get weirded out when your mom says stuff like that?” Sam asks Castiel as they cross paths in the hall.

            Castiel shrugs. “Kind of used to it, but yeah. A bit.”

            Dean sings in the shower, low and mumbled sweet words to “Back and Black”. Jo is next door, trying on different shoes, cooing at her pet snake. His parents and Sam wait in the living room. Castiel dries his hair, changes his clothes, and makes sure that his tank has enough air before hauling it down the stairs with him and into the car.

           

Dean’s last show at SDU was two weeks before school let out. Even in such a tiny venue, Dean and his band shined like real rock stars. On stage at the student union, speakers set up, lights flashing. There were four members to the Ramblin’ Birds. Dean sang and played the bass (wrote most of the songs), Chuck on drums (with his girlfriend Becky managing them and screaming in the front row at most of the shows), Charlie on lead guitar (also singing), and some distant cousin of Dean’s, Gwen on keyboard. Not many people could make playing the keyboard look cool, but she did. A queen dressed in black, she winked at the crowd. Silver jewelry adorned her body from her ears down to her ankles.

            Castiel always watched from backstage, at Dean’s side and the way he held the microphone or the bass like he and the inanimate objects were lovers, intimately embraced. Girls in the audience swooned and screamed, people held u their cellphones and lighters during the ballads. Dean’s unabashed secret passion? Slow rock ballads.

            They crooned some Zeppelin, two Johnny Cash songs, but mostly they snag their own stuff. Dean tilted his head and winked at Castiel, and leered at him when he sang the lyrics, _feathers in my hair, mouth crushed against mine._ Dean liked to sing low and filthy, about his car, about Castiel.

            Right after the show, as the roadies (Becky called them roadies, but they were just college kids, like Castiel, that Becky paid to help haul the equipment from the stage to the conversion van) took away the guitars and as Chuck and Charlie went to sign autographs, Dean grabbed Castiel by the waist and shoved him against the brick wall, devouring his mouth.

            _Like that last one?_ Dean asked, sucking on Castiel’s pulse point. _Wrote it after that road trip to Mount Rushmore._

 _I love all your songs,_ he tried to answer through hot kisses.

            _Gotta leave tonight_ , Dean said, almost wistfully, pressing Castiel harder against the wall.

            Becky squawked orders to the roadies and tried to do some crowd control. Dean took Castiel by the hand and through some alleys to his car parked in a student parking lot.

            Oddly tender and filthy at the same time, Castiel on his back, Dean hovering over him, wet mouth, mindless and dreamy. Performing revved him up like nothing else, and Castiel was his fuel. _I’m gonna miss you so much,_ he said, wriggling his hands into Castiel’s pants.

            Castiel did the same, tugging at the tight jeans, grinning into Dean’s mouth when he found skin instead of underwear. _I like that,_ Castiel chuckled, squeezing Dean’s ass.

            The car fogged up quick and Castiel’s lungs burned a bit, but he kept going. Dean bit into his neck, leaving purple marks. _You’re amazing_ , Dean said. _So fucking amazing._

            They couldn’t be bothered to take off most of their clothes. Castiel preferred Dean laid before him, bare and wanton, but this was good too. Dean begging, Dean praising, the hot splash of come slick between their stomachs.

            _Are you really going to miss me?_ Castiel tugged on Dean’s hair.

            _Yes. Yes, yes, yes._ Dean’s mouth along his collar bone, kisses down his chest to his steadily breaking heart.                       

 

Outside of the movie theater, the warm air hits Castiel in the face, thick and heavy in his weakening lungs. The tank catches on the lip of the door and he as to yank it forward. He didn’t need it yet. His parents walked out last, slowly arm-in-arm. Castiel wishes he brought his camera with him. Ahead, where Dean lights up a cigarette, he’s approached by two girls, a redhead and a brunette, both bubbly and cute. The brunette is the brave one, she steps forward, curling hair around her finger, and asks dean if he’s _the_ Dean Winchester from Ramblin’ Birds, the band that’s been playing at colleges and bars around that year.

            “Yeah,” Dean answers with a grin, looking like a real rock star with the cigarette dangling from his lips, his hands in his pockets. Castiel steps a little closer, his parents, Jo and Sam already down the sidewalk towards the ice cream shop.

            “We saw you play at SDU,” the brunette gushes. “You guys are fantastic.”

            “Thanks.”  He exhales the smoke away from them. “Glad you liked it.”

            “I was moved,” says the brunette, placing her palm over her chest. Castiel pulse thumps. “Especially during “Kitchen”. Tears in my eyes.”

            Dean’s face tightens a bit. It’s his favorite song, but he doesn’t like talking about it outside performances. About his mother, the afternoons they spent together when she taught him how to cook and play the guitar.

            The redhead looks at her shoes, chews on her bottom lip. “I lost my mom too,” she whispers.

            Dean clears his throat, the brunette gets quiet. He signs some papers for them, and hands them the card for the website Becky runs. “On the order form, if you want anything, tell her coconuts, you’ll get a great discount.”

            They thank him, the brunette still a bit giggly, her cheeks red, her eyes smoky, hoping for more attention from Dean than she’s getting. And Castiel wonders if he wasn’t there, if Dean would take up the brunette on her silent offer, take her around back, or to her place.

            Castiel shakes his head and has to take a hit from the tank. The girls walk away, Dean finishes his cigarette. Castiel steps behind him, inhaling the last wisp of smoke leaving on the wind. “You okay?”

            “Yeah.” Dean turns, kissing Castiel on the cheek. “They were nice.”

            “Yeah.”

            “Come on.” Another kiss on the temple, and Dean takes the handle to the tank with one hand, and laces fingers with Castiel’s fingers, and they walk to catch up with his parents.

 

The house breathes. It creaks and leans. Bobby snores down the hall, Dean sits in the attic strumming his guitar and writing. Castiel sits at the desk, flipping through the course catalogue. Ellen pesters him about more academic courses, just as a backup.

            _I fully support you_ , she always said. _But everyone should be prepared. Just in case._ Practical, his mother.

            His father always grunted when she wanted support on the matter. To appease her, Castiel agreed to double major in history. Maybe he could be a teacher, or work in a library. Pay the bills while he worked on his photography.

            He grabs the digital camera—he prefers the polaroid, or the canon where he had to develop the prints in the broken bathroom at the back of the house—and goes through the memory card. Lots of shots of the graduation, zooms on Jo and Sam as they each receive their diplomas. Jo glowed like a halo, Sam grinned wide. Some moments of his parents, all when they didn’t know he had the camera. Ellen baking, in jeans and bare feet, leaning over a giant mixing bowl, licking cake batter off her finger. Bobby appraising a silver, Civil War ear flask down at the shop. A series of Dean in the days before he left for the tour: Dean sitting on the bed, shirtless with the guitar in his lap, under the hood of his precious car, his shirt sticking to his back with sweat, Sam in the front seat. Dean’s naked back and ass as he walked away from the bed towards the kitchenette.

            Castiel sets the camera back on the charger and turns off his desk lam. Dean still plays, slowly, then quickly, slow again, trying to find a rhythm for the words that have probably been churning in his head since bumping into those girls. He wanted to be alone with his thoughts and his mother. Mary died so quickly, leaving Dean and Sam’s heads spinning.

            Ovarian cancer caught late, stage four, not much they could do. She went to chemo, radiation, had surgeries, but ten months later, she lay in a hospital bed, a husk of what she used to be, pale, all elbows and knees, her blonde hair combed to the side, a bright blue scarf tied over her head.

            She still smiled through it all, whenever her sons visited her, when Castiel came by. Warm and glowing, even in her final days. Once, Castiel walked in while she was alone. Dean had taken Sam out for a quick drive to clear his head. He’d been crying nonstop.

            _Cas_ , she said. She lay on her side, facing the window. _Come in, sit down._

            He did, sitting in the chair right across from the bed. She was so tiny, but her smile made him smile. _The boys will be back later,_ she told him, rearranging herself so she could see him better.

            _I can leave, if you want me to be alone._

She frowned. _Don’t be silly_. And reached forward to take his hand in hers. _I love seeing you, and your sister._

Mary was an angel, Castiel’s angel. The one that dragged him from the creek and put her mouth over his, breathing life into his lungs.

            _Castiel,_ she said.

            _Yes?_

 _Keep an eye on Dean, okay?_ Her voice cracked. _I know he puts on a front for Sam. But, he needs someone to watch out for him._ She squeezed his hand as tight as she could with her cold fingers.

            Castiel cried and she reached up to wipe away the tears.

            In the middle of the night, Castiel wakes up gasping, reaching over blindly for his mask. He finds a body on his bed again, but this time it’s not his sister. Dean looms over him, taking the mask and band, fitting it over his face. Castiel rubs his eyes.

            “What are you doing?”

            “Came down for a midnight snack. Heard you wheezing.” Dean never kept his fridge stocked. He brushes hair away from Castiel’s forehead.

            Dean is just as beautiful in the moonlight as Jo, his green eyes glowing aquamarine, his pouted, wet lips glistening. He could be a vampire. Pale and dark eyed, his hair tousled in different directions.

            “How about I lie down with you?” He starts to pull down the sheets.

            Castiel props himself up on his elbows. “Your bed is bigger.”

            “I don’t mind being this close.” He winks, already crawling into the bed. He lies against the wall, lining their bodies together.

            Castiel sighs. “I can make it up the stairs.” His lungs and heart would attest otherwise. “I made it up here from the living room, didn’t I?”

            Dean holds him in place, a nose close to his ear. He kisses just under his hairline. “It’s getting worse, isn’t it?” he asks, a quiver in his throat.

            Castiel shrugs. “I don’t know. Maybe. But sometimes it’s bad sometimes it’s not.”

            A gust of wind shakes the house, Bobby rolls over and stops snoring. Dean pulls Castiel as close as he can get, like he wants to be a part of him. Lungs fused together, legs twisted and twined like tree roots.

 

Dean wakes up earlier than usual. He crawls over Castiel’s body, trying to be careful of tubes and the mask.

            “What are you doing?”

            Dean pulls on a shirt. He peeks out the window. Castiel’s room faces the thrush of the woods. They built a shoddy tree house when Dean was ten and Castiel was eight. It was pretty unsafe, and Bobby and Mary took over construction after Dean stepped on a rusted nail.

            “Band practice.” He groans. “Becky texted me at like, five thirty. She’s going on about a fall in sales or whatever. I don’t really understand her when she starts going on like that. Especially that early in the morning.” He shakes his head. “You going back to sleep?”

            “Yeah.” He lies on his side, face half covered by the pillow. “Tired.”

            Dean moves across the room and kisses his forehead. “Come see us later?”

            He nods. Dean grabs some paper from his desk and leaves.

            Castiel stays in bed for another two hours, sleeping past the snooze and throwing his radio clock on the ground next to the oxygen concentrator.

            It’s almost lunchtime when he makes his way to the kitchen, finding it empty. He drags the little tank with him. A note on the fridge from his mother, she and Jo have gone shopping, Bobby is at work, and Sam is milling around somewhere.

            Castiel eats a turkey and avocado sandwich and drinks two glasses of water. His breathing is a little better, but he keeps on the cannulas so he doesn’t get winded as he makes his way from the house to the garage. He hears them already, a bunch of high-pitched laughter and tapping of the cymbals.

            Sam sits on the giant freezer shoved against the wall behind a set of broken rakes. Gwen stands by her keyboard. She’s cut her hair since they left, right at her ears, jet black, her bangs dyed bright green. She wears a lot of black, nails included. Despite her vampire-like appearance, she loves reality TV shows and fashion magazines.

            Becky fusses over Chuck at his drums. Custom made by his father in their gothic era house outside of town. He’s absentmindedly striking the cymbals as Becky talks numbers and shows him things on her clipboard.

            On a stool, Dean tunes his bass, the shiny dark blue one that he picked because it matched Castiel’s eyes.

            Charlie, thin and slightly awkward, hair as bright red as a cherry, beams upon seeing Castiel lingering between the door and the open space of the garage. She actually _squeals_ before skipping across the pavement and lightly putting her arms around him. “Cas! I’m so happy to see you.” He holds her back, loose around her waist. She smells like cotton candy and smoke. “I missed you so much.” She pulls away, her cheeks pink. “Did you get my pictures?”

            In envelopes, she sent ten polaroids at a time, a set from each show, from the weird motels they stayed at and the dives where they dined. Pictures of the crowd in front of the stage, Chuck passed out on the floor, unable to make it to his bed.

            “Yeah,” Castiel answers, taking a breath. He watches Dean over her shoulder. He tweaks a string, eyebrows raised, waiting for an update of Castiel’s breathing. “Some _great_ shots of Chuck.”

            Chuck is wiry, a bit squirrely. He’s been working on his mountain man beard for two years, just now covering the full expanse of his face. “Hey, it’s not my fault that Dean keeps spiking my soda!” He spins a stick between his fingers.

            Dean laughs. “Something has to calm you down after a show.”

            Castiel sits next to Sam on the freezer, and watches Gwen. She strokes the keys like a lover, whispering to them. Her babies, she calls them. The only thing she loves more than her car. The attraction to musical instruments and cars must be a Campbell family thing.    

            “Everything okay?” Sam asks.

            Chuck starts the count and then the beat.

            Castiel takes a breath and adjusts the knob on his tank. “Fine.”

            “Liar.” Sam jaw clenches. “Are you really that bad?”

            He shrugs. “Maybe.”

            Sam swallows and nods. “I have to go work on some stuff.” He sniffles and slides out the back door. Castiel leans back on the freezer, his head and shoulders against the musty wood. Bobby built the garage years ago. Cas and Jo stood in the driveway and watched while he and a buddy from work put up the four walls, the roof and the doors. Sometimes they handed their father tools, or Cas would bring him a bottle of water. Bobby even let them write their initials into the wet cement by the back door. JBS, CJS. Jo drew a smiley face, Castiel drew a cloud. 

            _Daddy, will you love me forever?_ Jo asked.

            _Of course, Princess_. He nailed something to the wall.

            _What about me?_ Castiel asked, shuffling his shoes.

            _You too_.

            Chuck starts playing loudly, Charlie rips the guitar, her nose wrinkling while she smiles. Gwen never looks at the keyboard, her fingers moving along like a trained concert pianist. Castiel imagines her at a grand piano, in a black gown, hair in a chignon, playing for an entire arena full of people. She’s graceful, even when she’s head-banging.

            Castiel takes a deep breath. Dean watches him the whole time, only parting their gaze to write something down, or tell Chuck to take it back from the top and Charlie isn’t carrying the tune as well as she should.

 

He doesn’t need the classes, but Castiel takes a summer photography class. He enjoys the silence of the darkroom. The sound of water lapping in the dishes, water dripping from developed photographs he’s hung to dry. His sneakers squeaking on the floor, the puff of his oxygen concentrator. Today they’re working in pairs. His partner is a meek girl with curly red hair. She smiles shyly around him and acts like he’s made of glass, but he knows she’s just trying to be nice.

            She takes pictures of landscape and nature mostly. Dusty fields and bright flowers. Dilapidated houses. A bunch from the Lakota reservation on the other side of town. The cornflower blue sky against the red clay of the desert around them.

            Castiel hangs a dripping photograph of Dean in the morning, his hair mussed and eyeliner smeared. “He’s handsome,” she says.

            “Thanks.” He feels his cheeks going red.

            “Your boyfriend or something?”

            “Something like that.” He pulls out another picture, this one of his mother in the kitchen, reaching for a beer.

           

Almost overnight, sleep starts to take over Castiel’s life. One morning, he just doesn’t want to get up. Dean nuzzled and kissed him, touched down his ribs, dripping his hand underneath Cas’ boxer shorts, but he couldn’t get it up anyway, and just went back to sleep.

            He falls asleep almost after dinner while Dean is writing songs and calmly strumming his guitar. Dean watches Castiel a bit, a grin to the side and calls him sleepy head and light weight. And as the days progress, Castiel doesn’t wake up until breakfast has been cooked and served, and Jo and Sam are cleaning up the kitchen. Ellen is in the office doing paperwork, Bobby already at work. Sometimes Dean brings Cas breakfast in bed, but he’s not usually hungry.

            He’s a drone during photography class, almost falling asleep in the darkroom, but Erica keeps him awake, nudging him, or trying to ask a lot of questions about his subjects and if she can get a copy of Dean’s first CD for her.

            “Are you alright?” Professor Gaines asks each day when Castiel trudges in with his tank, eyes droopy, lips bluing.

            “Fine.” He places his books and camera at his desk. He really hats that the class si on the second floor. Before he needed the tank full time, he walked the flight of stairs. No one gives him a hard time or a second thought after they realize the idiot who pressed the button for the second floor is hooked to an oxygen concentrator and can’t really stand fully. He sits in the front of the class, taking notes, the tank humming.

            Sam picks him up from school in Dean’s car.

            “Dean let you take his baby?” Castiel asks, suspicious. He adjusts the cannulas.

            Sam reaches to switch from the cassette player to the radio. “Well, it was to come get you. And I’m under strict instruction to get you from school, to your dad’s shop and nowhere else.”

            “What is he doing?” Castiel pulls at his shirt. He’s getting hot despite the air conditioner.

            “Becky demanded that they practice. They have a line of shows in the fall extending through the winter break.”

            Becky is nice enough. Small and full of pep and glee. An undying devotion to Chuck, and a mind for organization and planning that verges on obsessive-compulsive. She runs the band’s website and money, and sends out all of the merchandising herself, practically living at FedEx and Kinkos.

            At the antique/collectable shop, Sam parks the car around to the employee lot, which is just Bobby, sometimes Dean or Jo, and Bobby’s war buddy, Rufus. They use the back entrance and go through the office which is empty. Out on the sale floor, Bobby sits at his chair in front of the cash register.

            “Where’s Rufus?” Sam asks, standing behind the counter to go through a cardboard box full of baseball cards.

            Bobby rolls his eyes. “Off at some retreat or something. Have to run the damn place by myself.” Summer is usually better for business with the tourists, but there’s been a bit of a lull lately. Castiel wants to get a job to help pay the medical expenses, but he can’t think of an occupation with enough little to no physical activity.

            “You okay, boy?” his father asks, looking over his reading glasses.

            “Yeah. Just a little out of breath.”

            Bobby closes the folder. “Need me to check on the tank?” He’s ready to stand.

            “No, I’m good. I just need to sit.” There are stools and pieces of furniture for sale. Castiel’s favorite piece is a replica captain’s chair from _Star Trek_ that they’ve had in the shop for over a year. Bobby has it priced far too high and Castiel fears the day when a hardcore Trekker comes through with the right amount of cash and his father no longer has an excuse _not_ to sell.

            Castiel plops down on the seat, positioned near the used book section. Usually he grabs something off the shelf—they have a large sci-fi collection, taking books that were weeded and donated from the local library—but that seems to be an impossible feat.

            “Dude, where did you get this one?” Sam asks, his voice so far away. Bobby rambles off an explanation and something about the player. Castiel never cared for sports, especially with his heart limitations. Sometimes he felt bad that he didn’t share that with his dad. They played catch from time to time, and went to games at the big stadium in Pierre. But he doesn’t know anything about the current players or the histories of the teams.

            A tightness blooms in his chest, burning, moving down to his stomach. He starts to feel lightheaded. “Dad,” he says, but not as loudly as he wants.

            “Yeah?” He keeps talking to Sam about baseball.

            “I…” he wheezes and coughs.

            The baseball cards are forgotten and Bobby almost trips over himself to get to the working phone in the back. Sam kneels next to the chair.

            “What can I do?” he asks, panicked. “I mean, is there something I can do?”

            Castiel shakes his head and just reaches out for Sam’s hand. He tries to concentrate on his breathing, but it’s not working. The pain presses harder, like an elephant resting on his chest. He holds tight onto Sam’s fingers and tries not to look at his watered and worried eyes.

He’s stabilized at the hospital fairly quickly. He lies in bed with a mask over his mouth, IVs stuck in his arms, and electrodes on his chest, monitoring his heart rhythm. Propped up on a stack of pillows, listlessly staring out the window. There’s another building next to this one, lined with black tinted windows. Blue sky behind the building, fluffy white clouds. A flock of birds ascending the sky. Nurses come by and check on his breathing and blood pressure every hour.

            He wants to see his parents, he wants to see Dean and Sam, but no one has been by. Just the nurses with their kind faces and soft smiles. Bobby needs to know that he’s okay. On the ambulance ride, his face went pale as a specter, the hat in his free hand, the other holding onto Cas’. The medic was sweet and nice, she kept assuring Castiel, and Bobby, that he would be okay, the hospital was only a nine minute drive. They whisked him out of the ambulance and behind the emergency room doors, leaving his father standing there, with that hat in his hands, looking lost and alone.

            The door finally swings open and Ellen pushes her way in before Dr. Jackson. She’s dressed from work, her tight jeans and her tank top, her hair pulled back. She drops her purse on the chair in the corner. “Baby,” she says, plopping herself onto the mattress, but careful of the tubes and the machines. “Oh baby, are you okay?” Her warm hands on his cheek, her mouth on his forehead.

            “Yeah.” His voice comes out in a rasp.

            “Still in pain?”

            “Not really.” But he still feels the slight burn.

            Dr. Jackson clears her throat. “Mrs. Singer.”

            “Sorry.” Ellen kisses his face again. Castiel thinks of protesting, but he sees her eyes glistening, her straight mouth trembling. She touches his hair before stepping back to stand with Bobby. She leans on him, squeezing his arm. His father, a strong pillar of a man, bearded, gruff, has tears in his eyes too.

            Dr. Jackson goes through papers and looks at the machine to Castiel’s side. “How are you feeling Cas? Better? It’s okay if you need some more pain medication.”

            “Better.” His mouth is dry and he’s starving.

            “Good.” She smiles. She sits on a chair so Castiel has better eye contact without having to strain his neck. “Do you know what happened?”

            He shrugs. “Heart attack?”

            She grins but taps her pen against her leg. “Yes…actually. Mild. Your left ventricle is getting worse and is having an exceptionally difficult time pumping.”

            _Pumping_. Dean would make a snide joke, but Castiel doesn’t see him.

            “And what can we do about that?”

            “We’d like to insert a ventricular assist device.”

            A one to two pound pump attached to his body to help his heart pump the blood from the chamber of his failing heart. Lots of tubes, to his aorta, to his artery. “I think it’s the best option until a heart becomes available.”

            “A transplant then?” Ellen says.

            Dr. Jackson nods. “We always knew that this could be a possibility. If the medication couldn’t keep Castiel’s symptoms manageable. He will have to be evaluated by a transplant team. Including a psychiatrist and a social worker.”

            “Social worker?” Ellen scoffs. “Why does he need that?”

            “Just to make sure he has a good and stable support group.” She stands up. “I know this is a lot to digest. But as soon as Castiel is feeling a bit better and he’s discharged, I’d like to start paperwork for his intake session.”

            “Of course,” Ellen answers.

            “Great,” Castiel sighs, trying to retreat into the pillows.

            He’s checked over a few more times, x-rays again, they go over his breathing and blood pressure.

            “They’re just going to keep you overnight, baby,” Ellen says, fluffing Castiel’s pillows and adjusting the sheet around his waist, tucking it under his thigh.

            “Mom,” he says, wiggling.

            “Sorry.” She combs her fingers through her hair. “I’ll go home and gather some of our stuff. What do you need?”

            “Toiletries. My camera. Books. Some underwear for God’s sake—”

            “You’re only going to be here overnight,” Jo quips, flipping through an old magazine she found, and stole, from the waiting room. “Why do you need your camera anyway?”

            He shrugs. “I don’t know.” Instead of needing frames, or taping pictures to the wall, he could just look through the memory card.

            Ellen adjusts her purse over her shoulder. “She’s right, hon. We’ll be checking you out around twelve or so tomorrow. Maybe just the bare essentials, okay?”

            “Yeah. Okay. But I really want my toothbrush and underwear.”

            “Sure thing.” She kisses his forehead. “I’ll be back after dinner. Have to take care of some things around the house.”

            Code for: We have to discuss the finances to see if we can actually afford to get you a new heart and complicated operation. She kisses him again, almost on the mouth and mutters that she loves him before patting Bobby on the head and slipping out of the room.

            Bobby clears his throat. “I huh, I have to go do some stuff at the shop, then go home to your mom. I know she’ll be yelling at me about something.” He rubs under his cap before kissing Castiel on top of the head. “Are you coming, Jo?”

            “Do you want me to stay?” She tilts her head, staring directly at Castiel.

            “You can go. Sam will need someone to calm him down. I’m surprised he didn’t spazz out or whatever.”

            She smiles and closes the magazine. When she hugs him, she leans in close to his ear and whispers, “Your knight is waiting downstairs. No funny business.” A kiss before she leaves with their father.

            A nurse stops by with his lunch. Heart healthy and gross. No meat, just vegetables and some milk. He pushes it around his plate like a science experiment.

            “Knock, knock.

            Castiel glances up, seeing Dean leaning against the doorframe, a ukulele in one hand, a white carnation in the other.

            “Here to serenade me?”

            “Maybe.” He walks further into the room, eyes raking over Castiel’s body. The wires, the monitors and the IV. “Got a nice view.”

            “It’s okay. Please tell me you smuggled me a burger or something.”

            “Sorry gorgeous,” he says, turning around, the grin on his face pulled tight, “don’t think that would do your ticker much good.” He pulls the chair close so that his knees touch the mattress. He places the flower on Castiel’s stomach and holds his hand. “Had Sammy plenty scared.”

            He huffs. “Sorry about that.”

            “Me too, a bit.” He kisses Castiel’s knuckles. “You’re coming home tomorrow, right?”

            “Yeah, sometime in the afternoon. Going to have a reception for me?”

            “Only the best for my biggest fan.”

            Dean eats all of Castiel’s lunch, leaving him the oatmeal cookie. He plays the ukulele for Castiel until he falls asleep. When Cas wakes up for dinner, and his mother’s hovering hand, he sees Dean napping on the chair in the corner.

 

At home, Dean, Sam and Jo are moving Castiel’s things from his room into Bobby’s unused study. A room blocked off by a divider because the doors had been blown away during a tornado some two hundred years ago or whatever. He drops his backpack on the floor.

            “What are you doing?” He sits on his father’s recliner. All of the crap—mostly old books and filing cabinet, an old desk that should have been thrown out years ago—now sit wedged in the kitchen and hallway.

            “Honey, you’re having problems with the stairs,” Ellen explains. “And…you have to take it easy until your surgery, and after.” Her voice drops a bit.

            “I’m not an invalid.”

            “No one is saying that.”

            “Balls,” says Castiel.

            “Watch your mouth.”

            He watches as the army cot is setup and Castiel’s desk and lamp get placed next to the window (which had to be cleaned), his computer and cameras in tow. A lot of his books and a cardboard dresser for his clothes.

            Jo sits down next to him. “Here.” She hands him half of her grilled cheese sandwich. “I stuck a piece of bacon in the middle for you,” she whispers.

            “You’re the best.”

            Everyone goes to bed early. There isn’t enough space for Dean on the cot, but he drags the thin couch into the space. Castiel will have to step over him to get out, but he doesn’t imagine anyone is going to let him do much of anything.

            “This is stupid,” Castiel says.

            “You’re sick,” Dean defends, setting up his own sheets.

            “I’m not…” he huffs, feeling a slight strain in his chest. Dean sits on the edge of his cot and holds his hand.

            Dean is different when they’re alone. No audience here, no family. He always breaks apart for Castiel. Not a lot, and he never lets Sam see. He’s warm and smells like sweat and the garage. “I was worried today. Really worried.” His voice low and tired.

            “Why?”

            “Because you had a fucking heart attack. You’re going to get a pump inserted into your chest until you can get a _new_ fucking heart. Which, by the way, may not actually stick. Doesn’t that terrify you?” Dean finally turns to face him, his eyes dark, slightly watered.

            “Yeah.” He thinks about it all the time. How his heart is slowly losing its strength. Stretched and withered, desperate to pump blood through his thin body. He thinks about his parents, how they’d go on without him. And his sister. Sam who’s afraid of hospitals, and Dean who thinks he’s gorgeous.

            Dean clicks off the light and they sit there for a while, the sound of the concentrator whirring over their breathing. Dean kisses his cheeks, pulls the mask away just enough to kiss him on the mouth, desperate and wet, tongue licking along Castiel’s teeth, until Castiel starts gasping for breath, tugging tight on Dean’s t-shirt.

            “Sorry,” Dean exhales.

            Castiel pulls the mask back on. “It’s cool.”

            “Are you ready to sleep?”

            “Yes.”

            Dean adjusts Castiel in bed, the pillows and the sheets, then lies down. They’re almost on the same level. “You wake me if you need anything, got it?”

            “Aye, aye, Captain. You know, Dean, the inevitable heart attack would be worth the blow job.”

            Dean laughs. “Sleep tight, Cas.”

            But neither of them sleeps well.

            All week, Ellen watches Castiel like a hawk. She’s there when he’s eating breakfast, just happening to still be cooking or cleaning, long after everyone else has left for work, or gone to study. Dean looms as well, but he’s less annoying about it. He reads his paper, he scribbles notes in the margins while Castiel drinks his tea, decaf, and chews on his turkey bacon.

            “I’m fine, Mother,” he says, taking the tone that Jo usually carries.

            “And I’m cleaning the stove, how’s your day?” She adds a chuckle as she sprays the 409 across the glass surface. She’s taking time off work.

            Castiel sighs. “Dean’s here, Mom, you can go do whatever it is that you do.”

            “I’m cleaning the stove,” she says adamantly, wiping a wet rag over the surface.

            When Castiel watches TV (with Dean on Bobby’s recliner, shouting at the actors) she walks through to dust, to rearrange the bookshelf and inconspicuously peek on the status of the oxygen tank.

            Jo spends a lot of time with them. She sits with them on the couch, usually on Dean’s side so she won’t accidentally kick or get tangled in the tank. If Cas needs something, it’s almost a fight between Dean and Jo as to who will get him his glass of water first. She kisses Castiel before bed and before she leaves the house, but she’s always so delicate.

            “Where’s Sam?” Castiel asks one night. Dean is checking the tank, a habit that drives Castiel up the wall. He’s twenty-years-old, he can manage his own damn oxygen tank for his stupid lungs that aren’t getting enough damn oxygen because his heart is dying on him.

            Dean shrugs. “You know it was hard on Sam, when Mom was sick.” He always speaks quietly when he talks about Mary. “I mean, he spent time with her, and whenever she needed something he was there. But he spent a lot of time alone, like he does now.” He props Castiel’s pillows.

            It’s easier for him to breathe, up like this, with three pillows stacked behind him. Dean has most of his things stored in the little half-room. Both of his guitars stacked against the closet, his clothes still in his duffle bag from his tour. His plastic baggie with eyeliner and mascara, because even when he’s not on stage, he sometimes  wears makeup, because it makes his eyes pop. His tattered books on the desk, cluttered with Castiel’s text books. A photograph of his mother next to Castiel’s camera.

            Dean crawls onto his couch, reaching up to grab Cas’ fingers.

            “Why don’t you sleep somewhere else? It can’t be that comfortable.”

            Dean grins and touches Castiel’s bottom lip. “And miss out on waking up next to such a beautiful guy? Yeah right.”

            Castiel closes his eyes and focuses on the sound of his breathing, of Dean’s, of the tree frogs and crickets. “It’ll be okay,” Dean whispers, almost too quietly for Castiel to hear. He tightens their fingers. “It has to be okay.”

 

When Castiel was sixteen, in the middle of his growth spurt and had just gotten his heart diagnosis and Mary Winchester was in the middle of dying, he received a letter. Through several social workers, to his Aunt Pam who still worked with the group home he lived in until the age of five. A letter from his birth mother.

            Ellen fumed about it to Bobby to the point of screaming.

            _She is not his mother!_

_No, she’s not. But if it was something bad, do you think Pam would have passed it along?_

_Do you think she read it first?_

_Of course she did. She’s related to you._

            While eavesdropping from the stairwell with Sam, he imagined his mother’s scowl.

            A few days later after dinner, Ellen, Bobby, and Castiel sat at the table, the envelope in her hands worn and stained. She explained that Castiel didn’t have to read it, he didn’t need to have anything to do with her.

            He asked one, about his birth parents. No story on the father. Her name was Eve. She was a drug addict, in and out of rehab for years. Castiel had been born addicted to heroin, just like her, and was systematically taken away from her and given back, until he was four and she dropped him off at the local fire department. He carried fuzzy memories of that tie. A dark haired woman with blue eyes and trembling hands. The constant smell of cigarettes and gasoline.

            _Whatever you want, baby,_ Ellen said, touching his hands, squeezing them tightly. _She doesn’t know where we live or anything like that._

 _Elle._ Bobby nudged.

            They left him alone in the kitchen with the letter.

            He sat there for hours. Jo came in for water, Sam dropped by for a snack.

            At midnight, after his parents were in bed, and after Sam went home and Jo was in her room, Dean rolled in. Face long and drawn, dark rings under his eyes. He went right to the fridge. _What are you doing?_

_Eating._

_Not at your house?_      

            He groaned and cut a leftover slice of pie onto a plate. He sat down across from Castiel. _Just got Mom to bed. Sammy too. We’re kind of running low on food. Forgot to go out after work._ He helped Bobby at the shop and took shifts at the Jiffy Lube in town.

            Dean started munching. _What’s that?_

 _A letter from my birth mother._ Castiel sighed.

            _You gonna read it?_

_I don’t know. I mean, I don’t want anything from her._

_Do you remember her?_

_Not really._

            Dean cut into his pie and offered Castiel a bite. _Don’t think there’s any harm in it. Just to see what she says._

 _I guess_. He wiped crumbs from his chin.

            Eventually, Dean left too, taking the rest of the pie with him. And Castiel sat with the letter. He just stared, like it was toxic, poison. If he opened the envelope he could become diseased.

            The sun started to rise and he ripped into the envelope. It was only a page long, the writing small and cramped, scrawling from the very top corner all the way to the back bottom corner. It started with how sorry she was, just leaving him there, for hurting him over and over again. She had to make amends for her narcotics anonyms. She was on the ninth step and he was the first person she was writing to. She wouldn’t blame him for not forgiving her, for even hating her. He didn’t have to contact her, he didn’t have to say anything. She wished him well and hoped he was happy.

            He fell asleep at the table. Dean woke him with a dreamy kiss to the cheek and head. Everyone went on like nothing happened. Ellen never mentioned it or Eve again. Bobby took them all fishing. Sam caught a giant fish and smiled for the first time since Mary had been diagnosed.

 

The transplant center is in Pierre, almost a three hour drive. Castiel sits in the backseat with his tank and Dean. Jo and Sam didn’t have to come, Dean didn’t have to come really. It was just a bunch of tests.

            “What else am I going to do?” Dean says.

            “I thought you had band practice.”

            “We’re taking a little bit of a break.” He looks out the window. “Just for a bit. Gwen has to go see some family or whatever. Chuck and Becky are fighting. You know how _that_ can be.” Once, they didn’t speak for a whole month. The website went to shit and Chuck drank himself stupid.

            Castiel thunks his on the glass. “You don’t have to—”

            “Shut up.”

            He feels like a kid again, when his parents or Mary had to drive them to the movies or the mall. Dean is going a little crazy, not being able to drive. His leg twitches, he keeps watching out the window and the washout white of the day.

            “You okay back there?” Ellen asks.

            “Fine.”

            He’s checked in at the hospital and has to wait half an hour before the fun stuff begins. Blood work, (and the nurse was actually adept at her job, found the vein on the first try, just one tiny prick and it was done. He’s had some terrible people draw his blood, that couldn’t find a vein to save their life), tissue sampling.

            When he comes back from the echocardiogram, he’s ready to go home.

            “I know, baby,” Ellen says, kissing his head. “But it’ll be over soon.”

            “I have to get chest x-rays, that stupid stress test, a _dental_ exam, and a regular checkup. Then tomorrow I have to meet the shrink and social worker.” He kicks off his hospital slippers.

            Dean sits on the bed with his propped pillows, flipping through the channels and munching on a red Twizzler.

            “This isn’t a hotel,” Castiel says, folding his arms. He looks ridiculous in the gown that reaches just above his knees. He reaches to his bag to pull out his blue pajama bottoms. “Get up.”

            “Don’t have to be rude,” Dean answers, but only moves enough so Castiel can sit.

            “You’re not going to feel bad if me and Dad go check into the hotel are you?” Ellen asks, gripping the straps of her purse.

            Castiel shakes his head. “I have nurses and Dean. Go eat while you’re at it.”

            “Oh honey, we can’t just leave you—”

            “Mom,” Castiel sighs. “They’re just going to be poking and prodding. I’ll probably have to turn my head and cough.”

            “If you’re lucky,” Dean jeers.

            “It’s fine. I promise. Go.”

            She kisses him again. “Call us if you need anything. Dean, keep an eye on him.”

            “Yes ma’am.” His eyes are glued on the TV.

            Dean cranes his head. “’Bout time they left.” He kisses Castiel on the neck.

            “Are you really putting the moves on me when my heart could give out at any second?”

            “Be worth it, wouldn’t it?” A soft smile and Dean traces Castiel’s ear, down to his cheek. They only kiss for about ten seconds before a nurse comes in, interrupting them, to hook Castiel back up to his wires.

            “Sorry,” she mutters.

            “Don’t worry about it, sweetheart.” Dean grins and winks, then hops off the bed. He goes into the bathroom and leaves open the door. “Dude, the lighting in here sucks.”

            The nurse sticks an electrode to Castiel’s chest. “Is he bothering you?” she looks back suspiciously.

            Castiel tilts his head. “No.”

            She sticks his IV and takes his temperature. “Shouldn’t be too much longer.”

            “Sure.”

            Dean comes out of the bathroom, playing with the ends of his own hair.

            “You were preening?”

            “Dude, you have some nurses on this floor. Maybe we can convince someone to give you a sponge bath.” He waggles his eyebrows and kisses Castiel on the mouth. But when he pulls away, the corners of his eyes are too tight, his smile wavering.

 

Castiel is whisked away for more tests. Fun. The stress test where he has to peddle on a stationary bike and stop every few minutes because he can’t catch his breath. His pulmonary function tests (afterward he’s a little lightheaded and gets to sit down before the abdominal ultrasound), he pees into a cup, he has his teeth and gums examined—and yes he _does_ floss, and yes it does hurt when you poke back there by his molar where a filling is coming loose. Then the regular, physical exam. Check his heartbeat, measure him, weigh him, listen to his lungs, ask about his diet, his sex life (one partner, male, always safe), and then he gets to turn his heads and cough.

            By the time Castiel is back in his room, the sun has set, and he has a roommate. An older woman, his mother’s age. She’s wearing a thin, blue robe, her legs stretched out on top of the sheets, her toenails painted bright orange. She’s reading a magazine.

            “Hi,” Castiel says, sitting.

            “Hi,” she says back, glancing over the top of her magazine. “What are you in for?”

            “Need a new ticker.”

            “Who doesn’t?” she goes back to reading.

            His parents come by to pick him up. “Here are your clothes.” Ellen hands him his folded pants, shirt, underwear and socks. “Do something with your hair, we’re going out to eat.”

            “Really? Real food out, or we’re going to a fancy salad place?”

            “Well, your father and Dean overruled me. Since you won’t be able to eat this kind of stuff for a while.” Her voices catches and she’s running the charm on her necklace back and forth along the silver chain.

            “Thanks.” He takes his clothes and ducks into the bathroom, but leaves it open just a crack so he can hear as he changes.

            His roommate’s name is Jude and she’s been on the list for five years. She’s pretty much in stasis. Never getting better, but currently not getting worse. She’s here to get reevaluated. She has more tests spaced out tomorrow.

            Castiel pees and washes his hands. His chest itches from the electrodes, a small patch of hair missing from his sternum—not that he has a lot of chest hair to begin with.

            “Hurry up, princess!” Dean calls, tapping on the door. “I’m starving.”

            “Coming.”

            At the desk he signs papers, his parents sign papers because he’s still on his mother’s health insurance for another two years. He has to come back in the morning for the psych-evaluation and to meet with the social worker, and no he can’t just meet with his Aunt Pam, he asked. It would be a conflict of interest or whatever.

            “Least we don’t have to be here at crack ass in the morning,” Bobby reassures with a hand on Castiel’s shoulder that moves to ruffle his dark hair.

            At the restaurant, they get a booth so Cas can fit his tank against the wall and out of the way. He orders a steak sandwich and a bunch of fries and a large glass of soda. Ellen eyes him and his vigor of shoving the sandwich into his mouth.

            “Small bites, Cas, jeez.  Don’t want to give you the Heimlich in public.”

            “Leave him alone,” says Bobby, nudging her elbow. “He’s a grown man, he knows how to eat.”

            A1 sauce drips down Castiel’s chin.

            Sometimes it seems like his mother forgets that he’s an adult. He’s twenty (twenty-one in August). He’s in college, he can vote, and if it weren’t for his health problems, he’d probably have a job and be living on his own at this point.

            Ellen puts up her hands and keeps eating.

            Dean orders a pie and splits it with Cas.

            Thankfully, his parents got two rooms, adjoining, but better than the two beds in the same room. Ellen can still press her ear against the door if she needs to. “You come right to us,” she says, playing with his hair.”

            “I want to go to sleep,” he groans.

            “Okay, okay.” She kisses him, and Dean, each on the cheek.

            “Night boys,” says Bobby, leading her by the elbow and into their room. The door closes.

            Castiel sighs. “Finally.” He sits on the king sized bed, shucking off his shoes. He smells like the hospital, disinfectant, lemons. That sticky ooze they spread over his chest and stomach before the ultrasounds.

            “Pretty snazzy digs.” Dean ducks his head into the bathroom playing with the light, then moves to the kitchenette. A fridge, a microwave. A coffee maker with single serving packets of coffee and tea, small packs of sugar.

            “I guess.” Castiel takes off his shirt, tossing it to the floor.

            Dean grins. “Now that’s what I’m talking about, baby.”

            Castiel gives a half smirk. “I’ve been poked and prodded enough today. Maybe some other time.”

            “Here.” Dean pats the floral printed sheets. “On your stomach, I’ll rub your back.”

            “Really, just a back rub?” He raises an eyebrow. Many romps as teenagers started out as innocent back rubs or, _Hey can you come help me with this zipper? It’s stuck._ Sometimes Dean isn’t as sly as he believes he is.

            “Promise.” His voice drops.

            Castiel does as requested, lying flat on his stomach, his face in the pillow. Dean turns on the radio, fiddling before finding the classic rock station. “There we go,” he mutters, climbing on the bed, straddling Castiel’s thighs. He rubs his hands before dragging his nails down Cas’ back, causing goosebumps to rise all over his body.

            Def Leppard plays, one of the ballads, and Dean sings along, his voice low and husky. He rubs out the tension from Castiel’s shoulders and neck, moves down his back, over each vertebra, raking his nails back up to his hair. Castiel lets out a groan.

            “That feels so good.”

            “I know. You’ve got a lot of tension.”

            “Been in the hospital all day.”

            Dean lets out a breath. “It’ll be over soon.”

            Castiel tries not to think about the fact that after his psychological evaluation and meeting with the social worker, he’ll be undergoing a complicated surgery. He’d been reading the pamphlet and researching on the internet about LVADs and how difficult it would be afterward. Some people wear them for years before getting a heart.

            After a while, Dean stops, yawning, and rolls off Castiel. Castiel stretches and curls to his side so he can look at Dean. “I want it to be over,” he whispers. “I just want to be normal.”

            “Normal is overrated.” He kisses Castiel, warm and languid, their lips sliding, tongues just touching. “I’ll take care of you,” Dean promises through the kiss. Castiel doesn’t have the energy to answer, or to ask Dean, who will take care of you?

             

Castiel sits in the waiting room for twenty minutes looking through the different, colorful pamphlets on various mental disorders. Schizophrenia, major depression, ADD and ADHD, dissociative identity disorder. He stuffed them in his back pocket for Jo.

            “Castiel Singer?” a tall woman dressed in black slacks and a pink blouse stands by the desk, clipboard in her hands, glasses sliding down the bridge of her nose. She scans the waiting room.

            Castiel stands, tugging on the handle of his tank. “Yes. I’m Castiel.”

            She smiles and extends her hand towards him when he stands in front of her. “I’m Amy. Please, this way.”

            He follows her down several hallways until she ducks into a small office. “Sit,” she instructs. There’s a couch and two chairs, one meant for her no doubt. Castiel picks the chair next to the couch, his tank fitting in the space between the two.

            Amy sits in the chair that’s pressed against the wall, right under a bookshelf that extends almost to the ceiling. The clipboard rests on her knee and she crosses her legs. “How are you feeling today?” she starts.

            Castiel shrugs. “Fine I guess. I mean, I need this pretty much full time.” He tugs on his tubes.

            She nods. “Just so you know, Castiel, this is a private session. Nothing that’s said between us leaves these walls.” She gestures like a tour guide.  “Unless I feel you’re a threat to yourself or others, or if these records are subpoenaed. Sound okay?”

            “I guess. I mean, I think it’s just the one session, right?”

            “They might want you to have a few. Right now it’s just a simple evaluation. See if you can proceed to the next step.”

            “Oh.” He lets out a breath. “I could fail?”

            She chuckles, dark curls bouncing. “No, there’s no failing. Just making sure that you’re in the right state of mind, that you understand everything that’s going on. Heart transplant is a big deal.”

            “I know.”

            “Of course.” She nods.

            There’s a silence. Castiel glances around the small office. Amy is organized, though she has crammed a lot of stuff into the almost overcrowded space. “I’ve never been to a shrink or anything.”

            “Well, we don’t we start off with some simple stuff off the questionnaire, and then we can just go on from that point? It’s not scary, I promise. And I don’t bite.” She smiles.

            “Okay.”

            “How about, where do you live and who do you live with?”

            “Sioux Falls. When I’m not in school. I go to SDU. But at my parents’ house with them, my younger sister. And Sam. Sometimes Dean.”

            “Who are Sam and Dean?”

            Castiel’s leg starts bouncing. “Friends. Since we were kids.” He sees Dean standing over Mary’s shoulder after throwing up water. “Their mom died, and their dad left when they were really little. So he signed guardianship over to my mom. So Sa could stay in school and be with Dean.”

            “How sad,” she says.

            “Yeah. But, Sam’s happier with us. With his brother. John doesn’t really seem to care.”

            “Well it’s good that they have you and your family then.”

            Castiel swallows a hot coal.

            She asks about his friends, most of whom he doesn’t see during the summer breaks. A lot of them living in bigger cities away from the university, and he’s always had to stay close to home because of his heart. She asks about his hobbies and what makes him happy. A lot about his sister and his relationship with his parents and extended family. She even asks him about Eve.

            “Do you remember her?”

            “Not really.” Cas scratches at the back of his head. “I was like, four when she ditched me.”

            “Do you ever think about her?”

            “Not really.”   

            “Why?”

            “Because I have a family.”

            She moves away from the subject and glances back at her notes. “Dean is someone special to you.”

            He starts to pick at the fraying thread on the couch. “Yeah. I mean…yeah. He’s kind of my boyfriend.” His throat goes completely dry.

            She raises an eyebrow. “Kind of?”

            “Yeah. No, I mean. He is. Sort of always been.” Dean always at his side, that first kiss, the way he tastes after coming back from a show.

            “And he knows about your health problems?”

            Castiel nods. “He takes care of me sometimes. If I need it. I mean, I haven’t been this bad before.

            She jots down more notes. “He’s not always around?”

            “He’s in a band, but they’re on break. I think he’s stepped back to be here with me.”

            “That’s very kind of hi. He must really care about you.” Her eyes are soft, concerned.

            “I don’t want to be anyone’s burden.”

            Amy uncrosses her legs and leans forward a bit. “Being sick doesn’t make you a burden.”

            A thought suddenly crosses Castiel’s mind. He didn’t mean to reveal that he had a boyfriend. He thought he could separate himself from that. When he was in high school and wanted to donate blood, he was died. _Gays can’t give blood_ , said Nick, the jock who worked the sign up table. _It’s infected._

_That’s not true._

_Red Cross says so,_ he continued. _Back of the line faggot._

            Then Dean punched Nick in the nose, resulting in a broken bone for Nick, and a week’s suspension for Dean.

            “I…” Castiel starts. “Am I going to lose my spot on the list for having a boyfriend?”

            Amy tilts her head. “No. Why would you?”

            “Can’t donate blood without lying.”

            “I don’t agree with that policy,” she says. “But this is a completely different situation. I promise. You don’t have anything to worry about. Well, having someone cut into your chest and take out your heart is a little worrisome.” She smiles and Castiel smiles.

            “Okay.”

 

The visit with the social worker (on an entirely different floor and section of the hospital, which isn’t really fair to a guy who has to tote around an oxygen tank) is very similar, though Castiel doesn’t talk about Dean. He talks about his parents and his sister, about his home and school. How his parents moved him to the first floor (yes there’s privacy, yes he can easily get to the bathroom and someone is usually downstairs with him or within yelling distance).

            The results of all of his tests will be ready in two weeks. His appointment for the LVAD is in three days.

            “You okay, Cas?” Dean asks. Castiel snuggles as best as he can into Dean’s side, burrowing into his ribs, listening to the sound of a well beating heart.

            “Fine.” Castiel yawns. “I’m just so tired.” The weight of the hospital is in his bones, the stale air of Pierre in his lungs.

            “You okay, baby?” Ellen glances in the rearview mirror.

            “Fine.” He closes his eyes and tries to concentrate on the sweet smell of Dean’s skin and shirt.

 

The back door to the kitchen flies open and then slams shut, the screen dangling from its rusted hinges. Castiel rolls over to his side, expecting his parents. Maybe Ellen caught Bobby smoking and it escalated from there. Wouldn’t have been the first time. They were fighting a lot the last few days, about money and the procedure. They usually tried to keep it quiet.

            But instead, he hears Sam.

            “Don’t walk away from me!”

            “Fuck off,” Dean responds.

            They stop in the kitchen, Sam grabbing Dean by the arm. Castiel watches; they don’t even notice him on his bed, the sheets curled around his body like a shell.

            “Why are you doing this?”

            “Doing what? Cas and I have an arrangement.” His slurs, thick and drunk. Whiskey, the good stuff that probably cost him a hefty buck down at the bar where he usually performs.

            Sam laughs, but twisted and bitter. “But…you’re home, he’s home. He’s…Dean he’s having surgery in a few days! They’re cutting up his chest and sticking something in there. He needs a new heard for God’s sake.” He shakes his head. Cas can’t see Dean, he’s standing just out of sight, by the refrigerator. He shakes his head. “How can you do this to him?” Sam is almost crying.

            Dean doesn’t answer, just sniffles. “None of your business Sammy. Bug off.”

            “You’re an asshole. You’re acting like Dad.”

            Dean finally moves into view, taking Sam by the collar and shoving him against the table. The table shifts, the glasses and plates left out from dinner shaking, one falling onto the floor and shattering. Castiel doesn’t even flinch.

            “Don’t…I’m nothin’ like him.”

            Sam pushes Dean back and Dean stumbles. “Whatever.” He stomps up the stairs without another word.

            A tear slips down Castiel’s cheek, but he doesn’t bother to move.

            Dean slowly cleans the broken glass, tossing the shards into the trashcan by the back door. He locks the knobs and does the chain, not that it does much good.

            When Castiel hears him moving through the living room and den, pausing to run his fingers along the keys of the piano, Castiel closes his eyes, feigning sleep. Eventually, Dean makes it to the little alcove. He pushes back the room divider and pulls it shut.

            “Cas?” Dean whispers. “Cas, are you awake?”

            Castiel doesn’t move. Sometimes he sleeps deeply and for hours, when people are bustling about the house.

            “Cas,” Dean says again, kneeling at his side. The smell of the bar rolls off Dean. Smoke and booze, some girl’s flowery perfume. “Cas, I’m sorry.”

            Castiel still doesn’t move and tries to keep his face perfectly still. Dean’s so drunk he might not even notice a slight twitch of the nose or a batting of the eyelid.

            He kisses Castiel on the cheek and wet on his mouth, his lips tasting like watermelon lip gloss, sticky and sweet. “I’m sorry,” he says again, choking on his own words. He presses their foreheads together and cries for a little bit before kissing him sloppily and falling asleep on the floor.         

 

Now his parents are fighting. It’s early, the sun just rising, orange light spilling through the kitchen window. Dean is gone, shoes and all, his old guitar missing from the case. Castiel wonders if he’s on the roof.

            His parents also think that he’s sleeping. They can’t fight in their own room; Sam is a light sleeper, Jo eavesdrops.

            “—shouldn’t be doing it,” his mother says, voice finally moving from a whisper.

            “Well, he can’t walk around with that tank all his life. And that’s eventually going to stop helping him too.”

            “People die,” she hiccups a cry, “waiting.”

            “That’s why he’s getting this done. You know that he could die without it.”

            “Don’t. Don’t say that.”

            But it’s true. He could even drop dead before the surgery, two days away.

            “This isn’t…” she began. “This isn’t what I wanted, what I expected.”

            Bobby sighs. “I know.”

            “And the money, even after the insurance…we’ll have to dip into savings and his college fund.”

            “We’ll make do.”

            “This isn’t what I wanted.” She starts crying, muffled by his father’s chest.

            Castiel rolls to look at the wall. He doesn’t want to see Ellen’s face when she inevitably pokes in to see him before she goes to bed. She’ll touch his hair, check his tank, and kiss his head.

            He’s ruining is family, not even his to begin with. Jo is perfectly healthy, Sam and Dean too for that matter. If they had just left him at the group home, they wouldn’t be struggling. The water heater could be replaced, the other car would be running fine. Jo wouldn’t be working part time to get her laptop because all extra funds outside of bills and necessities went to co-pays and medication, and the healthy food that’s expensive. Dean would be free to be with who he wanted instead of wasting his time at Castiel’s bedside. He could sing, kiss, and fuck his way across America. Suck off that good looking bar tender after a show, write songs about the length of a pretty girl’s hair and the feel of her hips. Sam wouldn’t be watching a second person he loves die or leave him.

            After a good twenty minutes of crying and Bobby’s soothing voice, Ellen moves from the kitchen and into his cave. She doesn’t say anything, she sighs and sits on the edge of the cot, the springs creaking with her weight. He keeps his eyes screwed shut.

            Ellen strokes his hair and gives him a half hug, her wet cheek pressed against his. A kiss on the temple and she leaves, closing the divider behind her. Castiel can’t sleep. He watches the shadows on the wall move with the rising sun.

            Everyone starts to come down. Sam first because he’s always up early. Castiel lies there and listens. Coffee for Bobby, Ellen starts making eggs and bacon. The radio over the fridge is turned on, playing the quiet sounds of some soft rock and roll. Jo is next, breezing through the kitchen and grabbing a pop-tart before scuttling out the back door. She takes the truck, Castiel hears the muffler scrape along the slight speed bump at the end of the driveway.

            Breakfast is done and put on the plates and Castiel still hasn’t moved. Dean comes down, one step at a time, groaning when he crosses from the den to the kitchen.

            “You okay?” Ellen asks. “Didn’t hear you come in last night.”

            “Practice he says.”

            Castiel hears a mug slide across the table. Practice. He thinks about the girl that Dean lifted onto the hood of his car, or a really good looking guy dropping to his knees for Dean. Castiel is perfectly content on staying in bed all the rest of the day and they can drag his ass to the hospital, but the urge to pee gets him out of his cave. No one says anything to him as he crosses to the half bathroom with only a toilet and sink, pees, and comes back. He sits at the table, away from everyone.

            “Morning,” Bobby says. “You sleep okay?”

            Castiel shrugs.

            “Hungry?” Ellen asks.

            “No,” Castiel almost snaps. “No. Not hungry. Don’t worry about me.” He keeps his hands in his lap, his feet flat on his floor.

            “You’re sure? I made your favorite. You can’t eat after midnight tonight.”

            “I know. I’m not hungry.”

            “Cas.”

            He wants to slam his hands on his table. He wants to shout, he wants to kick. He wants to steal the keys and drive away so they won’t be bothered with him anymore. “I’m fine. You don’t…you don’t have to keep doing stuff for me.” He scratches at his wrist.

            “You’re pretty uppity today.”

            “Of course I am. I need a new heart.” He finally looks up. “I need a new heart and it’s killing everyone.” He stares at Dean for a second before Dean stands and heads for the door.

            “No, you’re not.” Ellen frowns.

            “Well you all should stop having your family discussions twenty feet from where I’m sleeping.”

            “Honey—”

            “This isn’t what you pictured, is it Mom?”

            Her stance changes. She puts down her fork she folds her arms and raises her eyebrows. “Castiel.”

            He bites out a chuckle, feeling his whole body shake. It hurts. From his feet to his lungs, down to his slightly blue fingertips. “Well,” he says, tugging at his shirt. “Maybe next time, you’ll keep this in mind when you go kid shopping. Too bad you’re past the return date.”

            _Crack_.

            A slap right across his face, stinging pink. He expects her to scream at him, to tell him to adjust his attitude. But she just stares at him for a few seconds, her mouth a straight line. Silently, she gathers her purse from the counter, and her keys from the hook by the door. She slips out of the room.

            “Mom,” he says though she’s not even there. He has to sit and put the tubes back in his nose.

            “Alright,” Bobby says, lifting Castiel by his bicep, hard. “You and me are going for a ride.” Castiel doesn’t get a chance to protest and Dean doesn’t ask where they’re going, or when they’ll be back.

            Bobby drags him out to the car without uttering a single word. He clears his throat, he blows his nose. “In,” he orders. Castiel struggles a minute with his tank, and Bobby doesn’t help. The car starts, chugging and sputtering.

            They drive for fifteen minutes in silence and Castiel starts to think that maybe he is taking him back to the group home even though he’s an adult. He rests his head against the window, the glass cool against his calmly sin. Finally, Bobby pulls off the road, to a scenic spot overlooking the valley.

            Bobby puts the car into park and rolls down the windows.

            “Neither of you are mine by blood,” he begins, his hand gripping the steering wheel. They don’t talk about it: the fact that Ellen had been just pregnant with Jo when her boyfriend had been killed in a hunting accident. She married Bobby shortly after Jo was born and he’s the only father she’s ever known. “But that doesn’t mean jack.”

            “I know,” Castiel whispers.

            More silence.

            “You know, your mother always said that you picked her.” His face shifts, and he smiles at the thought. “After your Aunt Pam called and she went to visit you at the home, she put Jo on the ground and she went over to you like you’d always been her brother. And she was only two. She’s hardly let go of you since.”

            The pain in his chest twists. “I’m costing money.”

            “You’re our kid. You think we’d ditch your sister if she had heart problems?”

            “I guess not.” He wiggles in his seat, his chest burning.

            Bobby finally turns. “Cas,” he says, his breath heavy. “We’d keep you hell or high water, good heart or if you’re gonna be hooked up to machines and tubes for the rest of your life.”

            “That’s not very optimistic.”

            “Quiet boy, I’m letting out my feelings.” He puts a warm hand on Cas’ scrawny shoulder. “We weren’t even looking…but your aunt emailed us your picture.” He shakes his head. His voice actually breaks a bit. “We knew that you belonged with us.”

            “Dad.” Castiel can’t help but cry a little bit. 

            His father pulls him, a little too hard, into an embrace, knocking his tubes, but Cas doesn’t care. He lets his dad hold him for a while. “I’m sorry,” Castiel says, wiping his nose and mouth against Bobby’s shoulder.

            Bobby holds the back of Castiel’s head, his face pressed against Bobby’s scratchy beard. When they were kids, Castiel and Jo complained and squirmed.

            Castiel starts wheezing.

            “Okay,” Bobby says, releasing Castiel and helping him hook the cannulas back up. “Suppose I should get you back before you pass out. Your mother would kill me.”

            “Yeah.” Castiel nods and wipes his face.

            Bobby puts the car back in drive. “And if you disrespect your mother like that again, I’ll sell the Trek chair.”

            When they get home, Ellen is still gone. Sam is cleaning up the kitchen and Castiel hears Dean plucking his guitar on the roof. She’s not back for dinner either, or bedtime. Everyone else goes to sleep.

            Dean is propping Castiel’s pillows for him, then steps back. He starts reading from a book on the shelf.

            “That’s my book,” Castiel whispers, leaning into his pillows.

            “Yeah.” He sets down the book. “I thought that your dad was gonna drop you off the ravine.”

            “Like you’d care.” He turns down the sheets.

            “Excuse me?”

            Castiel rearranges himself so he can see Dean clearly, his face illuminated by the overhead stove light in the kitchen. “You heard me. I already pissed off my mom and I don’t know if she’ll talk to me again.”

            “You’ll be lucky if she does.”

            “I know.”

            Being blood related doesn’t mean shit. Dean’s flesh and blood father left him and his brother, his wife, and started a new family with little thought. He willing signed over guardianship of his remaining son to the Singers. He only sent a birthday card, sometimes came by for Christmas.

            “What you should—”

            “Don’t Dean, okay? I don’t need it right now. I meant it when I said you people should stop having your fights near my bed.”

            Dean clenches his jaw. “Cas.”

            “I don’t need my boyfriend fucking other people while I’m getting ready to have fucking heart surgery.”

            “We have an arrangement.” Dean drags his hands over his face. His voice is lower than usually, like he’s been drinking.

            Castiel throws one of his extra pillows across the room. “That’s for when you’re on the road, asshole. Not when you’re home, and not when I’m stuck to an oxygen tank and they’re going to be cutting into me tomorrow.”

            Dean seethes, his jaw clenching to a rhythm, his hands shaking. He swallows. He teeters on his heels like he’s going to leave. Castiel does his best to hold back the tears, despite the fact that his eyes are still pink from earlier. “Dean,” he says, just over the sound of the ceiling fan.

            “What?”

            “Come sit with me please.”

            Dean lets out a long held breath. “I thought you’re pissed with me.”

            “I am. But I’m also scared, and I just really want you to sit with me.”

            They make eye contact. Castiel pulls on the puppy dog eyes, hoping to make Dean feel even worse, but also to convince him to sit.

            Dean nods and slips off his shoes before sitting in the narrow bed with Castiel, ever so carefully arranges himself around Castiel’s body and the tubes. “I’m—”         

            “Don’t. Just, please, don’t say anything. Just lay here okay?”

            The response is Dean nodding against his shoulder, slight stubble brushing against his ear.  
            At four in the morning, Ellen comes back. Castiel listens to her drop her keys and take off her shoes. She comes into the cave and kneels at his bedside, combing her fingers through his hair.

            “I’m sorry,” he says, tears in his eyes.

            “I know.” Her eyes shine. She smells a little like tequila, a special kind that Pam pays a lot of money for and keeps on top of her refrigerator at her apartment.

            “I love you, Mom.”

            “Me too, baby.”

            She kisses him on the corner of his mouth and touches Dean’s cheekbone before going upstairs.

           

           

In the morning, Castiel isn’t allowed any food, or water, just some ice chips that Dean feeds him. They move around each other like last night didn’t happen, but Dean is shaking a bit, his fingers dry and cold, he doesn’t talk much.

            “Are you ready, baby? Do you want to see Pastor Elks before they send you back?”

            He shakes his head. He saw Pastor Elks recently. He told Castiel he’d pray for his surgery, that if anything went wrong, he would be reunited with Jesus in Heaven.

            In the hours leading up to the surgery, nurses come in to take his blood and his blood pressure, they make notes on his chart. At eleven on the dot, Dr. Jackson comes in, a small on her face, a different chart in her hand. “You’ve got a full house with you today.”

            He shrugs. “Yeah.”

            “Well, everything looks good to go, are you ready? Any other questions?”

            “Minimal risk of complications, right?” Ellen asks.

            “Very small. He’ll have to be in ICU for a few days, maybe a week. He’ll be hooked up to a breathing machine and he won’t be able to talk.”

            Castiel watches dean in the corner with Sam, worrying his bottom lip between his teeth.

            A round of I love yous and kisses from his parents and sister. Sam gives him a side hug, scared of crushing him. Dean is last, leaning over him, an arm against the pillow, faces close together. “You’re gonna come out of this fine, right?” his eyes glisten, emerald gems under water. He touches the line of Castiel’s hospital gown.

            “Yeah.”

            “Good. ‘Cause you know, we need our photographer for the road. Don’t trust anyone else.”

            “Sure.” He kisses Castiel on the mouth, and he’s wheeled away.

            In the OR, they put a cap over his head. The lights are bright in his eyes and he starts to panic.

            Dr. Jackson touches his shoulder. “You have a really good support system, Castiel,” she says. “And this is going to help you greatly until you can get a good heart.”

            They set a mask over his mouth. “Okay, Castiel,” says the anesthesiologist. “Count backwards from one hundred.”

            Castiel makes it to ninety-two.

 

When Castiel first wakes up, he’s in a fog. The room is warm and yellow—too yellow—and sunlight pours through the open window. Ellen stands by the foot of the bed, a cup of coffee in her hand, her head tilted down, brown hair a curtain around her face.

            He wants to get her attention, call out to her or something, but there’s a tube down his throat and he can’t really move. He uses all his mind power to whisper out, _Mom turn around I’m awake and I’m scared._

            Eventually she senses him, turning her whole body. Her face lights up and she moves up the bed. Like he’s made of glass, she brushes her lips across his forehead. He can’t hear her, he can barely see her.

            When he blinks, he’s not in the hospital anymore, though the room is just as bright and warm. He’s four-years-old again, he’s standing in the middle of the reading room at the group home, alone. He spent a lot of time there alone. Not because he was unfriendly or anything, but he didn’t talk, not really. And when he tried, he stuttered, so he just thought it was best not to speak. He pointed when he wanted stuff, he tugged on the staff’s t-shirts. But he loved the reading room. One of the older kids was in there a lot too, tucked away at the bay window with all of the Nancy Drews.

            But then there’s his Aunt Pam—who wasn’t Aunt Pam at the time, she was Miss Pam—walking through the door.

            _Castiel_ , she says. _There’s someone who’d like to meet you._

A little blonde girl pushes her way through. Really big eyes, so big they encompass most of her little face. Her hair is done in pigtails and she wears a green dress. This is his sister. She walks away from the grip of her mother’s hand and right up to Castiel and in his personal space.

            _Hi_ , she says.

            _Hi_ , Castiel says back, without a stutter.

            She hugs him around his waist, warm and tight.

            _Joanna_.

            The other woman walks in, his mother. She lights up like an angel. _Honey, let the little boy go._

 _He’s coming with us_ , Jo says.

            _We don’t know that,_ Ellen whispers.

            Castiel hugs Jo back so tight because he wants to go home with them.

            Castiel blinks again and he’s back in his hospital bed, still attached to the breathing machine. Pain sears in his chest, IVs and tubes stick out all over him like he’s some kind of alien. Ellen is there, but now standing in the corner of the room with his father. Dr. Jackson is checking over Castiel, his tubes, she checks his pupils.

            “How are you feeling, Cas?” she asks. But it sounds like he’s under water. He thinks that he shrugs. “Hopefully this will just be for a few days, alright?”

            When he opens his eyes again, he’s alone.

 

He thinks he hears the opening cords to “Don’t Stop Believing” but Castiel knows that Dean refuses to cover that song ever since _Glee_ came to.

            _Psst, hey Cas, psst._

He opens his eyes. It’s his bedroom at night and Dean is climbing in through the window. He’s scrawny and his hair is honey blond from being out in the sun all summer. He’s seventeen, which means Castiel is fifteen.

            _How are you feeling?_

 _Okay,_ he answers though he can’t move. _Fine, I have to take some medicine and I have to go back to the doctor’s a lot._

 _Bummer._ He sits on the bed. He feels his mattress shift, it sounds more like the hospital bed. _You really scared me,_ Dean says. _Sammy too. He’s still crying about it, but he’s in bed with Mom._

But Mary is dead.

            _I’m sorry_ , Cas says, rolling on his side a bit.

            Dean leans in and kisses him. He tastes like jolly ranchers and Castiel can’t breathe. Dean’s fingers tangle in his hair. They hear Jo gasp and then run down the hall. _Shit, I’m sorry._

_Don’t be. Please don’t be._

 

There’s cigarette smoke wafting on the air. It startles Castiel enough to open his eyes. Standing by the window is a thin woman, a mane of long black hair tied into a braid that dangles down her back. A cup of coffee in her hand, the cigarette almost burnt to the butt.

            Eve turns around and wipes under her nose. The same big blue eyes, her mouth stretched thin and white. _Hey baby,_ she says. When she smiles Castiel sees that she’s still missing two bottom teeth.

            He can’t speak and she walks closer.

            _Now you have to stay really quiet, okay? Under the blankets. Mommy has to go get dinner okay?_

He nods. She strokes his face and kisses him on the mouth despite the tube. _You’re my little angel. I love you._

Castiel jerks awake. Dr. Jackson is standing over the bed. “You’re okay, Cas. Probably just a bad dream.”

           

“Okay, Castiel,” says Dr. Jackson as she props him up a bit. There’s a nurse on his other side and they’re both bracing him. “On the count of three, cough as hard as you can and we’ll pull out the tube.”

            He nods.

            “One, two, three.”

            They yank the tube and Castiel coughs like he’s going to puke, but he doesn’t. The nurse rubs his back and Dr. Jackson takes away the tube and pushes back the oxygen machine. “There we go. Atta boy. How are you feeling?”

            He swallows, his throat burning, a burning in his chest. “Fine,” he whispers.

            “Good.”

            She checks his pupils and writes down the notes from the machines that he’s hooked too. “You’re urine output looks fine.”

            “What?”

            “You’re still going to feel a little out of it. What do you think?”

            He can breathe, but the pain is still burning a bit. His chest feels full, but he’s not struggling. “I feel like a cyborg.”

            Dr. Jackson laughs. “Yeah, it’s a bit much. Your family is really anxious to visit you, would you like that?”

            He nods, but he’s barely moving.

            His parents come in first, Ellen cooing over him and kissing his face, so careful of the machines around him. Bobby kisses him too and accidently brushes against a wire, panicking and jerking back. “Sorry, son.”

            They can’t have a lot of people in the room, so Sam and Jo come in next while his parents file out. Sam sets a vase of blue flowers right by the window. Everyone gets a quick lecture about not touching the device, about taking it easy around Castiel for a while.

            Dean walks in, illuminated by the midday sun, an angel, leaning over his pillow and around the machines. He plays with the curled strands of Castiel’s dirty hair. “Heya gorgeous.” His eyes are pink and dry, his lips chapped. “You holding up okay?”

            “Yeah.”

            “That’s my boy.” He kisses Castiel’s forehead.

            He’s moved to another floor where he has another roommate. An older fellow, sitting on the hospital bed with his newspapers. Castiel has physical therapy. He can’t sit up, he’s still hooked up to a catheter.

            “It’s humiliating,” Castiel says, leaned into his pillows. Dean feeds him ice chips. They haven’t spoken about the fight, or the other people he’s been sleeping with. “My piss is in a bag.”

            “We’re pretending we don’t see it,” Jo tells him.

            “Leave your brother alone.” Ellen pulls open the blinds, the sun splitting through the room like a solar flare. Castiel has to shield his eyes. “Oh you need some sunlight and fresh air. You can’t stay cooped up in here forever.”

            “Mother, I’m hooked up to a bunch of machines and there’s a metal pump in my chest. I kind of don’t have a choice.”

            “You’re not a cave dwelling fish, you need light.” She ties back the curtains with ribbons.

            He lets them fuss over him.

 

The night Mary Winchester finally died, it was raining. A hot and muggy day, that even in between rain bursts, Castiel felt the humidity in his lungs, sweat lining his skin. The kind of day where breathing took effort.

            Sam and Dean had been at the hospital almost nonstop for a week. Mary slipped into a coma and Dean was told to make arrangements.

            Castiel sat on the screened-in back porch, a book open on his lap, but unread. He stared at the outline of the Winchester house through the trees.

            _Cas, hon, come inside,_ Ellen called from the kitchen. She’d been washing dishes all day (even the clean ones) and hardly spoke to anyone.

            _In a minute._ He pretended to read, turning a page every few minutes.

            She didn’t say anything else. Just kept washing and washing, eventually forgetting about Castiel’s existence. Eventually his father led her away, crying. No one bothered to try and find him as the sun set and the storm got worse.

            Finally, after Castiel dozed off, he heard the rumble of the Impala coming up the drive. Dean didn’t even stop at his own house. He parked out front and Castiel listened as they came inside. Sam cried, uncontrollably. Ellen came downstairs, Bobby slowly after.

            Castiel waited. Dean came out and Cas dropped his book.

            Dean stood there, his face worn like clay, eyes as dark as a well. _Hey_ , he whispered, voice so low and raw that Castiel almost didn’t recognize it. _She was asleep,_ he continued. _She was just asleep and she didn’t wake up, so I told them to unplug the machine. And she died. She just…stopped breathing._

            Dean started crying, deep sobs from his lungs and chest. He’d never seen Dean cry like that before. He dropped to the floor, his ass landing on the step. Castiel moved to be next to him, letting Dean rest in the crook of his arm and shoulder.

            Castiel thought of saying, it’s okay, but it seemed stupid and wrong. It wasn’t going to be okay, not really. His mother was dead, his father long gone. So Castiel just let him cry and he held on tight. He kissed Dean on the temple, and they both fell asleep, Dean leaning against Castiel and Castiel against the doorjamb.

 

The nurses that help and teach Castiel to sit up from his reclined state are nice enough. One of them, Meg, calls him honey and winks at him. He’s not sure if it’s playful or a real flirtation. When he’s able to sit up on his own, the LVAD a heavy and almost painful added weight, his friends start stopping by for short visits.

            When Becky enters the room and walks past the curtain, she gasps, her tiny hands flying to her mouth. “Oh. My. _God_. Cas!” The heels of her Mary Jane shoes clank as she rounds the edge of the bed. She sits by his leg, gripping his thigh. “Oh, _Cas_.” She moves to hug him, but stops because of the machine and IVs.

            “Babe,” Chuck says, following her in, slowly shuffling. He drags his hand down his face and over his beard. “He’s not…I mean he’s fine, right Cas?” He stands at the foot of the bed, his fingers running over the clipboard with his chart.

            “Yeah,” Castiel answers, though he’s not used to the weight yet.

            “Oh sweetie,” Becky gushes and grabs his free hand. She presses it to her cheek. “You’re warm!”

            Castiel grins. The pump must be working. “How’s the band doing? Dean doesn’t tell me much.”

            “Good. I mean, Gwen went home for a while. Charlie is seeing this girl and, well, we haven’t really heard from her in a few days.”

            Charlie was like Dean, could disappear for days on end with a single girl. Days spent in a motel room, naked, order some takeout.

            “They have some shows,” Becky explains, dropping Castiel’s hand and digging through her purse for a sheet of neon orange paper. “Local stuff, one out in Pierre. That’s actually a two-day even. Two days!” she squeals and kicks her legs. “There may even be a legit record executive there. Just hearsay right now.” She waves her hand. “But it will be a great start for the fall tour!”

            “That’s great, Becky.”

            “Dean’s excited,” Chuck says. “He’s been practicing, when he’s not here.”

            “Good.”

            She sits for a moment then squeals again. “Oh I’m sorry, Cas. I’m glad that you’re doing better. You look fantastic.”

            “Thanks.”

            His mother comes in to hover whenever she can. She takes detailed notes during all of his physical therapy sessions and the walkthroughs on the daily maintenance of his machine and the cleaning of his incision.

            Sometimes, no one is there. He’s lying on the bed, staring out the window. His roommate sits and reads a lot, never really making conversation. And sometimes when Castiel is alone, and his roommate is on his daily walk practice, Dean comes in the room with acoustic guitar and sits in the chair. “Heya gorgeous.”

            They still don’t talk about what happened, and Dean always has rings around his eyes.

            “Hey.” Castiel doesn’t feel like moving today. He walked down the hall earlier with Meg holding his arm and encouraging him. It wore him out. “Sorry, but I’m not taking off my shirt for you.”

            Dean grins. “Don’t worry, I got pictures.” He starts plucking at the guitar. “Remember when I stood outside your window with the ukulele?”

            “Yeah.”

            “Any requests?”

            “I don’t care.”

            “Yeah you do.” Castiel hates the Eagles and isn’t a big fan of Johnny Cash. But Dean picks something upbeat, newer. He sings “The Whole Wide World” and Castiel can’t take his eyes off Dean’s hands.

 

“Stop squirming,” Ellen orders as Meg pushes Castiel’s wheelchair into the elevator. Castiel kicks his foot and twists the hospital bracelet on his left wrist.

            “I’m not squirming.”

            Meg chuckles.

            “I’m perfectly fine, I don’t need to be wheeled out.”

            “Hospital procedure, sweetness.”

            He’s checked out and signs papers and is sent home with pills and pamphlets, along with a business card listing his next appointment as well as a list of emergency numbers for his LVAD as well as a list of symptoms of something gone horribly awry.

            “You doing okay, Cas?” Ellen asks anytime the car hits the tiniest ditch on the road or a swerve. She glances in the rearview.

            “I’m fine.”

            “You sure?” She starts to nudge at Bobby. “I can get your father to slow down and drive like a decent person.”

            “I’m driving  the speed limit,” Bobby snaps, pushing her aside. “’Sides, Cas has been away from home for weeks, you wanna get home right boy?”

            “Yes.”

            Walking is still a bit painful so his bedroom is still in the den. After dropping off his bag and camera, he walks to the kitchen.

            There’s a cake and a welcome home banner, along with a bottle of bubbly grape juice. “This is for me?” He sits down. He doesn’t feel much like standing either.

            “Of course!” Jo moves to hug him, Sam trailing. He has to bend awkwardly and is super careful of his sides. Recovery isn’t quite over yet.

            “Missed you,” says Sam.

            Dean isn’t there.

            He doesn’t come home the next day. From his cot, he calls Becky.

            “Are you sure you should be on the phone?” she asks. “I don’t want you to get out of breath or anything. I don’t want to cause you any stress!”

            Castiel has to smile. He’s lying propped up on his bed, staring at his feet. “You’re not. Where’s Dean?”

            There’s a pause before she speaks and he can just imagine her on the other end twisting her hair and chewing on a pen cap, Chuck sitting next to her, prompting her to lie and cover for Dean. “They’ve been practicing.”

            Dean was gone a lot after Mary died. When Sam couldn’t get out of Jo’s bed and Castiel was finally breathing normal again, though in possession of the tank.

            “Thanks, Becky,” he says, hanging up.

            Silent dinners, everyone treats him like glass despite the fact that the LVAD is what’s supposed to make him stronger. Everyone tries to help him. Get his food, help him with his laundry, try to help him up the stairs. It’s a while before he was allowed to change his own bandages and clean the incision.

            Jo knocks at the bathroom door as he fills the tub to his ankles.

            “Cas.”

            “Go away, Jo.” He dunks a basin under the spigot to collect water and then sets it on the lid of the clothes hamper he dragged over from the corner.

            “Don’t you need help?”

            “No. Mom and Dad already asked, Sam asked. I’m good.” He dips a rag into the basin.

            She scratches at the door like a cat. “Okay,” she whispers. “Goodnight. I love you.”

            “Night.”

            She pads away.

            A few minutes later the floor creeks again and the doorknob starts to turn. “Jo, I said I’m fine.”

            The door slowly swings open, the hinges rusted (something else that could have been attended to instead of his stupid heart) the wood swelling in the August heat.

            Dean props himself against the doorframe. He looks like shit. Messy hair, his jeans ripped and belt missing a loop. Dirt under his nails, eyeliner smeared down his cheeks. Circles under his eyes. “What are you doing?” he asks, his voice rough as rocks.

            “What does it look like?” Castiel scoffs and gestures to the space around him. The moldy curtain, two basins filled with soap and water.

            Dean wipes under his nose. “Need help?”

            Castiel rolls his eyes. “No, I’m fine, thanks.”

            “Cas, please.” Dean sheds his jacket and starts to wash his hands. Castiel leans against the tiled wall.

            Dean steps inside the tub, boots still on. Castiel smells the liquor, heavy perfume. “Let me help,” he whispers, taking the rag from Castiel’s grasp. He’s too exhausted to argue. Dean dips it in the basin. The drag is slow, the water cold, down and around the incision. It stings a bit, Castiel inhales sharp through his teeth. “Sorry,” Dean says.

            “It’s fine.”

            Dean kisses above the cut, against Castiel’s wet skin.

            “Dean.”

            The perfume wafts off him, along with smoke. A giant, purple hickey on his neck beams at Castiel. Dean takes another step in the space, encompassing him, but not touching the device.

            “No,” Castiel mutters, leaning back. “I’m not doing this.”

            “What?”         

            “Did you think I was just going to forget? If you want to keep fucking people, then I’m done.” He steps out of the tub before Dean can catch him getting ready to cry.

            “Cas,” he says, bewildered as Castiel leaves the bathroom, moving down the hall. “Stop. Dammit, Cas.” His voice rises.

            Castiel stops dead in his tracks to turn around. “Don’t do that. Don’t play the offended party. I have been turning a blind eye for _years_. And I’m done. Either you want to be with just me, or you want to spend your whole life with a different person each night. Do it. I’m not going to hold you back anymore.” He’s rehearsed this a thousand times before, hoping he’d never have to say it.

            Dean wipes under his nose again, across his mouth. “You don’t know what it’s been like for me.”

            “For you?” Castiel laughs. “Oh I’m sorry that my sickness has been hard for _you_.”

            “No.” He shakes his head. “I mean, watching someone else that I love, die.” His voice is sotto, his eyes drawn down and Castiel sees the weight of Mary’s death teetering on his shoulders. He did everything for her, and in the end, his love wasn’t enough.

            “Well guess what? Not dying anymore!” He gestures to the wires and device being held under his arms like gun holsters. He storms away to his room, slamming and locking his door.

            There’s a thumping at the door, Dean running his knuckles against the wood. “Cas,” he sniffles. “Cas, open up.”

            Castiel backs away to his bed, plopping down on the mattress. He listens for a while as Dean tries to wiggle the door handle and keeps repeating his name. Cas lies on his back and holds the pillow over his face until he hears Dean walk away.

 

When he wakes up the next day, the Impala is gone, along with the stuff from Castiel’s alcove. He can make it up and down the stairs now, but he still tires easily.

            His parents don’t say anything.

            “We heard you fighting,” Sam says.

            “Well, we weren’t being quiet.” Castiel pokes at his food.

            Jo clears the table.  “It’s about time someone told him.”

            “He loves you,” Sam says.

            “I know.”

            “He’s just a jerk.”

            “I know.”

 

The first time with Dean was awkward and clumsy, and nothing like the TV shows and books said it would be like. Dean couldn’t the condom right, they got lube all over the bed and just decided to finish each other off by hand.

            Afterwards, they sat on the bed, still naked, knees touching. Dean smoked a cigarette, but blew the smoke the other way. It was caught up in the air by the ceiling fan.

            _Your mom doesn’t mind_? Castiel asked, nodding to Dean’s left hand.

            He shrugged. _I try not to, I mean when she’s at home. It bothers her since the chemo._

 _Yeah._ It bothered Castiel too, but he didn’t say anything.

            _You feel any different?_

_No. Do you?_

_No._

Castiel reached for his backpack. Dean leaned forward with him, pressing his front to Castiel’s back, grabbing his ass. Smoke wafted to his nose. _Get off._

 _That a request?_ Dean laughed.

            Castiel turned back around. _Sit. Like you were._

 _Anything for you, gorgeous._ He grinned ear wide, cigarette hanging from his lips. He sat cross legged, elbows on his knees. Castiel snapped a picture. _Want to try this again later?_

_Practice makes perfect, right?_

He leaned forward to kiss Castiel on the mouth. _That’s my boy._

 

 

Castiel spends a lot of his time in the darkroom.  The bathroom on the first floor hasn’t worked in years, something to do with the plumbing and a broken pipe that was never fixed. They had two upstairs, and the one in the attic. No one griped when fourteen-year-old Castiel begged and begged for a darkroom for his new camera. He wanted to be a real photographer. So instead of fixing the pipe that led to the toilet, he installed an air ventilator and blocked off the small window by the shower with thick plywood board.

            He has his drawers labeled for his papers, each glass bottle of chemicals in an order, also neatly labeled. Different sized trays, a shelf for his camera, a small safety light, illuminating the room red. When Castiel closes the door, he has to stuff a towel at the crack to block out the sun’s rays from the window down the hall. A series of wires hang from one wall to the next starting at the shower spigot to the other wall, clothes’ pins holding to the wires, a handful of them in a basket on the back of the toilet.

            He pushes around a print in one of the smaller buckets, squinting from the light. He had to take an incomplete for the summer course, and can’t sign up for the fall classes at this point, he’ll start back in January. His photography and cameras had been pushed aside after the surgery and his physical therapy and learning how to work around the LVAD. He moves now without any strain, though occasionally he bumps into something.

            The incision is healed, the bandage is gone, and Castiel hasn’t seen Dean in three weeks. No phone calls, no email or postcards. Charlie still sends the polaroid snapshots, and on the back of one she wrote, _he really misses you._ Castiel had been tempted to toss it, but instead he stuck it in one of his photography books.

            The picture in the tray is of Dean, the days before Castiel was hauled off for his surgery. Dean standing in the kitchen in his usually worn jeans and a band t-shirt, at the countertop, making a pie. Castiel takes it out of the tray and pins it to the string.

            “Cas!” Jo calls from the stairwell. “Dinner!”

            “Coming,” he answers, but not loud enough for her to hear. Before he turns off the light, he catches his reflection in the mirror, staring at the cut in his chest and the battery holstered to his side.

 

“Castiel.” Someone is shaking him. “Castiel, wake up.”

            “Go away,” he groans. He wants to roll to his stomach, but can’t. He’s not allowed to with the device.

            “Get up this instant.” It’s his mother and she flicks him on top of the head.

            “Hey.” He finally looks up at her. “What’s your problem?”

            “Get dressed, get your stuff.” She moves around the room like a humming bird.

            Castiel looks at his clock. “It’s two in the morning…is the house on fire?”

            “The hospital just called.” She’s crying and she’s smiling. “Baby, you’ve got your heart.”

            He freezes. “What?”

            “Don’t you have a bag or something?” She stands in the center of the room, scratching her head.

            There’s no way that a heart could be ready for him, not this soon. He had to get the LVAD so he’d live for years waiting for a heart that probably wasn’t going to come. There are a lot of people worse off than him, kids, teenagers, who need the hearts more. He was prepared to wait for years, or to die before one became available.

            Without an answer, Ellen grabs his old gym bag from the top of the bookshelf and starts stuffing things in. his underwear and some socks, and mindlessly grabs clothes from the dresser.

            “Mom,” he says. He stands and walks to her, taking her wrists. He’s taller than her, has been for years now. “We have time to back the bag.”

            They didn’t really. Within ten minutes, there’s a medical transport waiting outside for him. Pierre is only an hour away, but the medics say it will be less than that.

            At the hospital, once he’s changed and laid on the stretcher (after his vitals are taken) he’s given seven minutes, timed, before he’s taken into surgery.

            “Darling.” Ellen touches his hair and kisses him all over his face. Her palms tracing over where she had slapped him before, like the mark is still there. She doesn’t bother hiding her tears. No one does at this point. “You, you are one of the best things that happened to us. You hear?” Another kiss. “Wouldn’t trade you for anything.”

            “I know.”

            Jo pushes her way thought. “You better be okay, okay? Because we’re supposed to grow old together. You, me, and the guys—”

            “And whatever idiot you trick into marrying you,” Castiel finishes for her.

            She kind of smiles. “Yeah.”

            Bobby doesn’t say much and tries to hide under his cap. He just clears his throat and gives Castiel the best kind of hug that he can.

            To Castiel’s surprise, Sam pokes his way though, and he sees Dean standing by the door. “Sam?”

            “I know…I know that I’ve been avoiding you a little bit,” Sam says. He actually reaches out to hold Cas’ hand. “And I’m sorry.”

            “Don’t be.” He tries to smile. “How’d you get him here?” He nods.

            Sam rolls his eyes. “He’s been living in his car down by the lake the last few days.”

            Dean steps forward, always last. He grabs Castiel’s hand, a crushing grip. “You have to be okay.”

            “I will be.” But he’s not sure. They’re taking out his device which has been working fine, and taking his heart, and sticking in a new one. His body could reject it right away, or a few years from now. Most heart transplant recipients don’t live more than ten years, if that.

            “I promise.” His mouth trembles. “I promise no one else, okay? It’s just you. Always been you.”

            The door opens and in scurries a team of nurses and doctors. “Alright, Castiel, we need to take you back.”

            “Okay.” He holds his breath.

            Dean holds on as tight as he can until the bed is rushed away. Castiel watches his parents, his sister, Dean and Sam in the hall as he’s taken back.

            “I know you’re nervous,” says Dr. Jackson, pulling the net over his hair.

            “The…the LVAD is working, I don’t…”

            “It’ll be okay, Castiel,” she says and winks at him. “You’re getting a good heart.”

            He leans back and tries to count down from one-hundred.

 

There are white clouds and Castiel is pretty sure that he’s dead. He expects to see his grandparents, his great aunt Stella, and their childhood dog Rumsfeld. But then he smells cigarette smoke. He opens his sticky eyes and glances around the room. There’s Eve again, staring out the window. _Are you doing okay, honey?_

 _What?_ He whispers.

            _I’m so sorry that I’m leaving you. I’ll be back later, okay?_

  _I don’t understand_ , he says.

            _It’ll be okay,_ she repeats, nodding. She’s crying. He smells the fire department. Diesel oil and concrete, wax for the gleaming frames of the trucks. _Mommy will be back soon. Okay, Cas? Mommy will be back soon, just wait here. Don’t go anywhere. I’ll be right back. I’ll be right back, Cassie._

He doesn’t like to be called Cassie, not even when he was four.

            _I won’t be here,_ he says. _I won’t be here when you get back._

 _Okay, baby, okay._ She looks around and straightens her hair. Her hands are shaking, they always were.

            _I won’t be here. Do you hear me? I won’t be here._

 _Mommy loves you._ She blows him a kiss. It’s the last time that he’ll ever see her.

            “I won’t be here.”

            “What’s that?” He hears his mother’s voice. His real mother.

            Castiel opens his eyes and Ellen is sitting next to the bed, holding his hand. “Are you okay?”

            He nods. The room is warm and blurry, and this time he’s not on a ventilator.

            “Doctor says it went great.” She brushes the hair from his forehead. “You’ll need to be here for a few days, maybe a week. Then medication. Take it easy for a while. But all and all, you should be go good to go.”

            “Dad.” His voice is just under a whisper.

            “He’s been in the chapel.” Castiel raises an eyebrow. The only time they can get him to church is on Christmas and Easter. “Jo wanted to light a candle for the donor family. And you can see the boys in a few days. Dean brought those for you.” She gestures at a bouquet of gift shop flowers, red and yellow carnations with sprigs of baby’s breath and ferns.

            Castiel shifts and pain shoots down his chest. He grimaces and stops moving. “Hurts.”

            “I’ll get the doctor, okay?”

            He nods and the morphine button becomes his new best friend.

            The next two-and-a-half days are blurred with his haze of painkillers and sleep. Very few people come through. He sees Dean, once, standing by the bed with a forlorn face and sparkling eyes. Dean touches his cheek and says something, but Castiel doesn’t remember what it was.

 

On the fifth day, four days away from Castiel’s discharge, Dean strolls in the room. Castiel sits alone, flicking through the channels.

            “Anything good?” Dean asks.

            “Just soap operas. And no, I’m not letting you watch.”

            Dean grins and pulls a chair close to the bed. “Are you feeling better?”

            “Yeah, I mean, I can breathe, I can feel my hands and toes.”

            “Got color in your cheeks too.” Dean touches his skin, right under his eye. “Charlie finally came out of hiding. We’re rearing up for a big gig in a couple of weeks.”

            “I know.”

            “You gonna be there?” Dean doesn’t look up, just at the IV sticking out of Castiel’s hand.

            Castiel reaches over to thread his fingers through Dean’s hair. Dean finally looks up, mouth in a straight line, his eyebrows furrowed. “Yeah. If the stitches are out by then and I get the okay from Dr. Mom.”

            Dean smiles and leans over to kiss Castiel and the heart monitor beeps a little faster, and for the first time, Castiel doesn’t feel any pain.

 


End file.
